



<* . O 0 

«o 4 v 


I \ * V c> * 

a 0 V s ... r * C‘ 

'* * yfSSS&te-'. *« .v 

: * 





A \ r ' J ^f. * - V, ,'' > ,. ‘ • '■i'y\-l 

V> *<*<>, > S>* s'*’'* V V *<‘°z ^ 

'*«?' : 0Mm c , v - Jp M : ^ «* . ^ //% i 

» <4 "" if r ,V <P 

* ^ •%> *. i*W* ** V 1 * -V 

■D, / 0 _ . * aO S '/ s «'\ 

,0* c “ N 0 * O ** / 


^ 'a, •>.•'«■»'•* 

***'%'“'\J's'Jl‘‘i'% 

'-. ^ ^ ;/2^ 

.° * 



■i^ v ^ 

• * ■ d* 


* a"0 v /Jfrf’ "y^,. /• *p. „ *. yj c, O ,T- ''■ *tA'pf%* ' S' 

{• %<?> *iSfe: .\4jfek; % £ : M'X' **4 

': X X \wBw» ^ V : ,as: ^ o ’ v?!^* «>*”% 


•P, w»; -y (. '" 

v- '■ / S .A <3 y 0 a A 

«• „ ^ " * * ' A , V I 8 * S- * 

N , <* V <*0 ' /y? o, -/ <4> 

■ ^" v - a ->^ ,\\ * Je r '{f//S*2j -p 

'^O O' 

S. 0 O. 



,V :# * 

- * v ,o J 



CL y * o, 

© <> , 0 o,V 

V-/.. 3 N. 0 \ V 

V' * ^ * 0 A 

Y *3 C* * 


cS -V 
■A* ,v 

< A C ’ , Me ^"X- A- 

0 t'Ai - % >r * 
* 1 *■ 

* a0 O 

**y \ ■<• * 

^ ' S 



xxxxx ' ’ 

„‘\ Ar .'A a C-r. c, 

• - ’ ^ ^ X . 

* 4 A 

-V •* 


A* L ^ -s A.> 

A O' V ' S ., 

yX a * z V///A 1 , xr 

X - r : r , o WM*X; Ji <$. 
s' •>. , ;* v> •» , 

A * 




,> . «•'» * .V s ' 

X ’°' y /,««t C 

a ‘b o° y^ xx 

a s>, 


% 

-> *« 

y * t* ■ 
\ 

. > 4 


yr 

-■’ V ^ v 







- a^' * ^iW 1 ' r --'0 o A 

-.A * . ,A^ ' rsg' < ' A 'fA 

- 1 ° (A A * Jf- A , <<- V, 

“At i".. - 


• '' / s N . A D 

* *' X y "lx X 


vAA ^ ' 

* * * .. «y < 


aV Of. 

w r> *- , 

».n‘ A 0 ' . 

\> ^ ^ 4 > ,0' O 

c y * 



iP' ; ^ x °°' < ' * llfll* = ^ \. 


» M : ^{^ : 

,p .p o W§T\§r * ^ ^ 

^ 0#V".V^' ^ <A - 

1 * 4 % ^ 0 * X * ^ 

* . .0 c 

, 0 A* 

: o o' 

' yi o ' S 

-' X x \ 

^ rS >^ > „ , 

/■ x 




1 ,< Nil« v>' s* 

d* » ’ c> ~* O' y 

'■^ y o > A ,0 a ^ 

,a a 

<• _sr' ' >’'' , ,«j y ■,, 


r 


! : 7 

V 



x 

X' v 

*»■ 1 


^ o' 

» ^mms L-i/*a\ * 

s' S oO C* "v 

' * f 0 s • ♦ r °y ♦ 9 M 0 ’ 

a0’ C> 

^ <v ? 'v- ^ 

v * >f*W% * <?• v 

Xr> ,<v 


0 



*» -v^V '0/> o : 

^ o -* .\r -<?• ’’ ^ 

'., ^o. .0' c ° « ■< * v 1 8 * 

• - " 0 *-^' '• ^ 0 ° 


y wfF v „ 

y“ */ / , S f\ 

< 5 . V 4 4 a\ \ I B » 

; ^ v* ; £M&* « 

\ 0O y<. 


^ ^ 0 * * 
















< A 

\ * * 

'oo' 

L *"'* *° 

/■ 'p » /j & * 

K « ^ »\' ,*. «f\ V ' /Vi r ' C, 

•$> ^ . jfMM’i, ° «z 




!s 0o x. 








^ k . * <?/* * o N 0 ' 

cy s 1 /, O < ■ 

& % v 

A ^ 


* * ^ * 


^ / ‘"" S s % .\ 

« 6- <r s A 


* v,‘ * 

A A 

* \0 

f c> * .cS^fv w ^ ^ V ^ ^ 



-v > B 


’A J * 1-1 ^ a .$- v 

-3 y O * X * 

« O 
•t O 



J *«°" 







A *tX 

NT 




\ '.£*, o» 

O / 0 x •*■ A 

' ^A ^ " 


a <fv 


8 l \ 









*, V .** * *&•»,••>. 

■ /, v 


**% 


A V 

x* v, . *\ix<5s„<? jl. f» ^ A * 

i\ * j* "-"v f 0 </ AX A * *- ' •. * . ^ X*, -A^ 

' &y'-'Z .\y ‘ A iyJ&' '’’a V t£$l&gff>* ■’bo' 1 ! ■ • A V 




Aj * » N a ‘ .^i A, t u - ^ t 

* N V v »•> * 0 ^ > A y 

\r *«?<?'* V .,.< •* -v <*> v> t- 
■k X' * ** i c* A O* y 

/AAV / a;%% 

iS5SW '' ^ ^ ~„a 



ii *U 




0 * X 




% • <?, *8H0 5 ^ 

v> ** * 

p % ,■ 


A>' 

I/' X'i ' 

jr x '•• ^ 

* V ^ V 


-,x * • -' v^’ o.., v * • * 'VA.^'A 

Vv ^ :- c a %/ * 

" c> ^ - • i !' ^ ~ aV r/> - 

• ^ , Vj, ,\ >. . 

^ -n, t 

kv ,<. 4 , — v ^ «r 

^ A ^ .0° °c> ir - 0 | .V 

> 8 ' 1 .0^ 


v ^ y ^- c 'A 



O0’ 



°0 




S 'A 


m*' : 


s s v s A 

rtV 1 ., 0 N f' # */, 

v ^rntz/Wr .x. v ='Z^1C%-' * 








4. o V 


< 


c> 

A 





»^ w \0" 


C, X' 

A A 


O /n . ^ <h 

. Q ,X S c 

O v. * 


y' .>> ^ V > • i,\P X 

a v - ✓ -^ny^ > 

•o' c v ' •'' X v,,- ^ '"’ v 4 > 

> ' X" ^ o°‘ 



o5 ^ 

^/u 

^ "* . , . A ,o- o, », N o ? ^ vt A * 

8 1 s s? '* y c> v N > 

av° * ?'>y^ ■> , 

A 4 A ^ !s^ a A 



y» 

0 51 s' ’ ” * " N " v ,V «-'■*'’ „ 

<^A C « ^ V .< V ® T 







s'Ja 

.-■> ^ 


I> 

< y 

A A 

* 'W wx/' ♦ ^ A 

, s A .O. ' 0 , X 


A 

A -f O cy c 0 A <c A 

O O' * ^x>v ^^ A 

... ^ v + : 




A 




^V ' y -«SJ^ S A , A y 0 , X '‘ XX 


r/ c o^x ^.c^°;:•/% x 

u° * C4SNTV y . +._ .V " X * ^ ^ J C ^^ V ' S " -* ’ jVl 


> .VI.* A 


■-■' ^^ J ii' A ^ .v. « ^ . 










































































































LECTURES AND ESSAYS 


ON 


VARIOUS SUBJECTS. 




MR. SIDNEY GIBSON’S WORKS. 


HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF TYNEMOUTH. 

VISITS TO NORTHUMBRIAN CHURCHES AND CASTLES. (First Series). 
DILSTON HALL AND BAM BURCH CASTLE. (Second Series of “ Visits ”). 
NAWORTH AND CORBY CASTLES, HARTLEPOOL AND DURHAM. 

THE CERTAINTIES OF GEOLOGY. 

MARVELS OF THE GLOBE—TWO LECTURES. 

MEDIAEVAL HISTORIANS—A LECTURE. 

THE ANTIQUITIES OF HIGHGATE—A PRIZE ESSAY. 

ESSAY ON THE FILIAL DUTIES. 

ON SOME ANCIENT MODES OF TRIAL. 





LECTURES AND ESSAYS 


ON 


VARIOUS SUBJECTS, 
HISTORICAL, TOPOGRAPHICAL, AND ARTISTIC. 


—- 

BY WM. SIDNEY GIBSON, ESQ. 

M.A., F.S.A., F.G.S.; BARRISTER-AT-LAW; 


HON. MEMBER OF THE ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, ARTS, ET BELLES LETTRES, DE DIJON ; 
OF THE ARCHITECTURAL SOCIETY OF ST. ALBAN’S, ETC. 




LONDON : LONGMANS AND CO. 
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE : ROBERT ROBINSON. 


1858. 

,7f. 



















CONTENTS. 


• PAGK 

Lecture on Poetry and the Fine Arts : their affinities and powers . 1 

Leaves from Old Trees: an Essay, comprising notices of trees re¬ 
markable for age, magnitude, or associations . . .47 

The Origin and Present State of the Inns of Court . . .69 

Lecture on Historians and Literature in the Middle Ages . . 95 

New Lights in History—a Review of Mr. Froude’s History of 

England . . . . . . . .117 

The Antiquity of the Bell, with notices of some remarkable Church 

Bells: an Essay . . . . . . .133 

The Stone of Destiny . . . . . .172 

The Black Rood of Scotland . . . . . .179 

Curiosities of the Number Seven . . . . .183 

Londiniana : an Essay on London, Past and Present . .193 

Notices relating to Arundel House, and the Dispersion of the 

Marbles collected by Thomas Earl of Arundel . . . 226 

The Renaissance at Alnwick Castle ..... 233 

Lecture on the History of Bothal Church and Castle . . 242 

An Archseologist’s Holiday in York ..... 257 

A Border Chieftain’s Tower ...... 264 

On Church Extension, and the English Episcopate . . / . 271 

A Letter against the proposed Revision of the Liturgy . . 277 

On the Northumberland Cabinet of Roman Family Coins—a Review 

of Admiral Smyth’s Catalogue . . . . . 283 

Letter on Testamentary Jurisdiction ..... 287 

Notes on the Origin of Executors of Wills .... 294 

Letter on a Revision and Consolidation of the Statutes . . 296 

Notes on the Title of Defender of the Faith .... 300 

Use of Norman-French in Parliamentary forms . . . 304 

Validity of Oaths ....... 306 













. 
























































































































































































r R E F A C E. 


The Author has been induced to revise and collect 
in the following pages some Lectures and Papers now 
published for the first time, and some Essays and 
Eeviews contributed by him to the various periodicals 
in which they have appeared; and he has only to 
express his hope that these essays may be as favour¬ 
ably received by the Public as they have been esti¬ 
mated by his indulgent friends. 


Tynemouth, February, 1858. 















t 








■ 










I 






































Large Paper. 

Only Fifty copies printed 
Fob Presentation. 
























































































































































POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS: 


THEIR AFFINITIES AND POWERS. 


A LECTURE. 

[Read to tlie Members of the Durham Athenamm; the Alnwick Me¬ 
chanics’ Institute; the Sunderland Literary Institution; the Tynemouth 
Literary Society; and the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne.] 

The kindred arts of Poetry and Music, Painting and Sculpture, 
are thought to have their foundation in that affinity for the 
beautiful which is innate in the human mind, and to derive their 
power from a concord between the perceptions of harmony that 
belong to the human soul, and the divine harmonies of creation ; 
from subtle relations between ideal beauty and those instincts of 
the mind—ever true to the image of its Maker—which welcome 
with delight the objects that bear His signet mark. It was a 
favourite idea in those classic lands which were the birth-place of 
Art, that the soul had enjoyed a blissful pre-existence—a former 
life of which memories occasionally came vividly before the 
spirit; and seeing how it was ever stirred by the representation 
of ideal beauty, “ as by a breath that reached it from the borders 
of Paradise,”—how responsive the mind was ever found to the 
Muses’ voice, it was believed that the arts were divinely given 
to companion the soul from its lost heaven, and were but arts of 
memory. Apollo and the Muses were accounted of divine origin, 
and the fountains of poetry were traced to a celestial source—and 
well might they be so derived, for poetry has proved a divine gift 
to human genius, and the poetic muse has been a priestess of 
religion, whether her inspirations are traced in Palestine, beneath 

B 



2 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


the patriarchal cedars ; in Greece, upon the heights of Mount 
Olympus ; or among the pine-clad hills of Italy and the august 
monuments of Roman power. 

Poetry has been defined as the more vivid reflection of the 
truths of nature and of the soul. Whatsoever the perceiving 
sense and imagination can present to the mind, whether bywords 
or by the forms of imitative art, is the subject of poetical 
expression. Heaven and earth, human life and passion, and all 
the range of created things, own the dominion of poetry, and are 
swept by her starry robe. Throughout nature, in all her variety 
and grandeur, a divine message seems continually borne to man, 
whether (to use the language of an eminent divine) she cheers 
him with radiance, appals him with darkness, astonishes him with 
magnitude, or soothes him with harmony. To the most ancient 
of people the grandeur and beauty of nature appeared as the 
visible manifestation of God’s power, and all creation was repre¬ 
sented as joining in the hymn thus celebrated in Hebrew verse:— 

To Him sing the lips of all creatures: 

From above and from beneath has His glory sounded. 

The earth cries,—There is none but Thee ! 

And the heavens respond, Thou alone art holy! 

Majesty issues from the deep, harmony from the stars; 

The day sends forth speech and the night her voice : 

The fire declares His name : the woods utter melody; 

The wild animals tell of the greatness of God. 

We cannot look without emotion upon the riches and beauty 
that surround us in Nature : we cannot mark, unmoved, her 
fields and flowers, her seas and streams ; nor can “ the sunny 
light of genius fail to produce poetical images upon the showery 
background of the imagination as the rainbow is set in the sky.” 
It is not in vain that the earth is perpetually renewed in verdure, 
that the joys of spring are scattered on our path, or the golden 
mantle of autumn thrown upon our fields—that we behold the 
vast and solemn sea, the throned majesty of the mountains, or 
the forest’s “deep immensity of shade.” It is not in vain that 
the hills exert their influence on man, especially in countries 
where (as Ruskin observes) no veil has been drawn between them 
and the human soul, where no contradicting voice has confused 




POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


3 


tlicir ministries of sound, or broken their pathos of silence, and 
ambition has sought no other throne than their pinnacles cour¬ 
iered by the clouds. It is not in vain that all creation is 
suffused with the magic of colour—the far bright blue of heaven 
which awakens our longing, the purple radiance which warms 
the soul, the golden yellow which calms the spirit, the fresh 
green which delights the insatiate eye. But the poet’s imagina¬ 
tion is not merely 

-a mirror that gives back the hues 

Of living Nature: 

natural objects are reflected with a glow from the speculum of 
mind : they are blended by the imaginative faculty into new 
combinations and creations of its own; and, fused in the fire of 
genius, they pass into the fairy land of truth and fancy, and 
assume forms no longer subject to decay. 

The outward world of sense enshrines or embodies what is 
invisible and spiritual, and the chief aim of Poetry is to read in 
that world the symbolic language in wdiich Nature everywhere 
speaks sublimely to the soul, and to reproduce that language, by 
the modifying powers of the poetic faculty, with the ideal images 
which the fancy supplies. And it is in human life and action 
no less than from natural scenery that Poetry finds her fitting 
province. She is not only the interpreter of Nature, but the 
herald of all that is virtuous and heroic in man: and the magna¬ 
nimity or the virtues which History commends to remembrance, 
Poetry shelters for immortality under the rich plumage of tho¬ 
rn use’s wing. 

Such, then, are some of the chief sources and materials of those' 
mental images which genius embodies in poetry or in the forms 
of imitative art. Written words, painted representations, or 
sculptured forms, are but the varied modes of poetical expression 
—the means by which the poet, painter, or sculptor communi¬ 
cates to other minds and exhibits with all the force of truth and 
the vividness of reality the ideal images he has derived from the 
characteristic features of external nature or of human life. And 
how wondrous is that faculty of picturesque and vivid apprehen¬ 
sion which can give to poetry or to the creations of art as much 

B 2 






4 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


power over our feelings as tlie reality could possess, and can 
invest them with a vitality that time cannot destroy! How 
admirable is that power which can give an ideal empiie 
throughout all ages to mortals ennobled by heroic virtue, and can 
represent to us the Past in its full glow of life and sunshine 
“ bright, strange, and novel in its far antiquity, yet as human 
and busy as ourselves ; which can make suns shine and winds 
blow, build houses out of their ruins, populate old streets from 
forgotten graves, and make colours glow before our eyes as with 
the magician’s power.” 

I have said that the poetic muse has ever found a native home 
in the sacred places of religion, and she resorts to them as she 
resorted to the shrines of ancient worship, attaining her highest 
splendour when employed upon the highest themes. It was in 
the day-spring East that her star rose to gild and guide the 
world; and through the writings of inspired prophets and law¬ 
givers sparks of the ancient poetic fire are scattered. The Book 
of Job has been regarded as the oldest poem in the world; and 
the poetry of nature was felt by the writers of other parts of the 
Holy Scriptures, who gave it a holier aim, employing poetic 
imagery in announcing their visions of the future, and in 
declaring the attributes of the Most High. Omnipotence being 
the most impressive of all God’s attributes, the sublimest of 
descriptions are those which have for their theme the stupendous 
works of infinite power—beyond our planet, in the boundless 
immensity of space, the inconceivable number of the bright 
worlds beyond our system, and the unceasing velocity of those 
distant spheres; or upon our globe, the manifestations of the 
Creator’s power which we behold in the strength of the hills and 
the resistless dominion of the sea, in the terrific grandeur of the 
storm, or the silent beauty of the starry night. 

Many passages of Holy Scripture might be cited in which the 
grandest of poetical images are connected with the descriptions 
given of the power of the Almighty, and in which the prophetic 
apostrophes are delivered with a rhythmical conformation of 
sentences and a poetical use of metaphor, as well as in a dignified 
language, which are appropriate to the majesty of the subject. 
A characteristic example occurs in the 60 th chapter of Isaiah: 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


5 


Arise! be thou enlightened, for thy Light is come, 

And the glory of Jehovah is risen upon thee. 

For, behold, darkness shall enfold the earth, 

And a thick obscurity shall cover the nations : 

But upon thee shall the Lord thy Light arise, 

And upon thee shall Ilis glory be conspicuous. 

And the nations shall walk in thy Light, 

And kings in the brightness of His rising. 

Poetry has likewise been for ever connected with religion by 
those compositions of the Royal Psalmist which afford expression 
to all human emotions. To this day, when the aspirations, the 
gratitude, or the grief of the heart seek expression before its 
Maker, we fly to the odes of the sweet singer of Israel. King 
David has been truly called the most popular of poets, and 
perhaps no nation is more familiar with his poetry than the 
people of Great Britain. 

Thus has Poetry been employed in the service of the true 
God, and associated with the solemn grandeur of Scripture 
scenery and the dark mountains of Sinai. Let us now look at 
the office of the poetic muse when employed in the service of the 
deities of Mount Olympus and the oracular shrines of Greece. 
Amongst the-Greeks—the most intellectual of ancient nations— 
all knowledge was originally derived from the treasuries of the 
poetic muse. The myths which had been transmitted from ages 
as remote as the building of the Egyptian pyramids were pre¬ 
served in poetic form, and perpetuated the traditions of a higher 
world in which deified heroes were companions of the gods, and 
of those fabulous times “ when a Phrygian Ceres taught 
Athenians the cultivation of the fields—when a Phoenician 
Neptune or Minerva introduced navigation and the culture of 
the olive—when an Egyptian Cecrops laid the first foundation of 
civic polity—and a Theseus imported from Crete the traditions 
of a legislator.” 

In the early days of the Greek Republic, and until the age of 
Herodotus, the poetic muse seems to have given a voice to 
History. In like manner the historical traditions of the earliest 
nations of Europe are found to have been transmitted in the 
poetic form. Thus the Druids traditionally preserved amongst 
the eastern colonists of Gaul, of Hibernia, and of Britain, their 



6 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


learning and history; and the poetic form of their eailicst know 
ledge may be traced in the historical remains of Celtic nations as 
well as in the bardic triads of Wales; while in tlie East itself the 
preservation at this day of the pure and copious language of 
Arabia has been attributed to the vitality of tlie Arab poetiy. 
So it is that by Poetry the mental treasures of early civilisation 
have been conveyed to following generations and to distant lands; 
and we therefore view a nation’s poetry (to adopt a simile used 
by Professor Trench) as the amber m wliicli a thousand piecious 
and subtle thoughts have been preserved, and which, having 
arrested the lightning-flashes of genius, has sailed laden with its 
precious freight in safety across gulfs of time in which empires 
have suffered shipwreck, and in which the languages of common 
life have perished. 

But to return to the Greeks. Poetry seems not only to have 
preserved the witness of History, but to have moulded even the 
institutes of the moralist and the legislator. The study of oratory 
and of music or metrical delivery were combined among the 
ancient Greeks under one master, and the musical notes, like 
oars, gave impulse to the language of the orator. The legislator 
was in some instances also the poet, and it may be said that poets 
and lawgivers resorted together to the fountains of the muse. In 
metrical language the wise Solon not only sang of love, but 
delivered his legal institutes and his patriotic exhortations. 

In Greece, Poetry, like the sister arts of Sculpture and 
Painting, was occupied especially with man. The Greeks even 
ascribed the origin of painting to woman’s love: they related 
(as we all knowj that when a certain warrior was taking fare¬ 
well of his betrothed, before his departure to battle, she was 
struck by seeing his shadow thrown upon the wall by the light 
of a lamp which she held, and tracing the outline of the figure, 
her father, who worked in pottery, came and filled it up with 
coloured clays, which he afterwards hardened, and so a coloured 
figure of her lover remained before her eyes instead of himself. 
Among the Greeks, poetry did not find its chief province in the 
description of natural objects: indeed in the pages of the Greek 
poets, passages descriptive of natural beauty are scarce ; yet no 
one can doubt their sensibility to the beauty and grandeur of 







POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


7 


nature, who remembers their proverbial taste, and their habit of 
selecting for their temples and oracular shrines, localities of 
peculiar beauty and sublimity, like those historic promontories of 
the iLgean sea, which seem fit bulwarks for the throne of the 
deities of Olympus. But the description of nature in her mani¬ 
fold diversity was not a characteristic of Greek poetic literature, 
save where some moral or human interest was connected with it, 
and gave it special significence. One would hardly have expected 
to find this characteristic in the literature of “the lively Grecian 
in his land of hills : ” it is as if he had thought, with our 
Sidney Smith, that the real use of the country is to find food 
for cities; or with Dr. Johnson, who, we are told, preferred a 
walk down Fleet Street to the finest scenes in the country, 
though he at all events felt the force of their associations, as he 
pitied the man whose patriotism did not glow upon the plain of 
Marathon, or whose piety did not grow warmer amid the ruins of 
Iona. It has been truly observed, that with the Greek poets, 
and with the painters also, in the best periods of Greek art, land¬ 
scape is always the mere back-ground of the picture, in the fore¬ 
ground of which human figures are moving. So that, whereas 
in our own times we have not only delightful poems, but an 
entire school of painting, devoted to landscape, and find the re¬ 
presentation of the picturesque made prominent even in epic 
and other poetry; natural scenery is touched only in brief and 
suggestive phrases by the Greek poets, undoubted as was their 
sensibility to the beauties of nature, and their discriminating 
power of perception of the beautiful. In the pages of Homer 
himself, the father of Greek poetry, we have more minute and 
tantalising descriptions of splendid feasts than references to 
natural scenery, yet Homer’s poetry exhibits a genuine love of 
nature : witness the epithets, of admirable significance and 
descriptive truth, which he applies to the unfruitful sea, the 
cloudy mountains, the starry heavens, the rosy-fingered morning, 
and to many other natural objects—but it is a love which discerns 
a sympathy between the aspects of nature and the vicissitudes of 
human feeling. Nature and her scenery was subordinate in 
interest to the actions,- passions, and aspirations of man. So, too, 
it is as suggesting to the chained Prometheus an image of glad- 


8 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


ness and hope that .fEschylus mentions the sea stretched before 
the Titan, and describes the many-twinkling smile of ocean, and 
the light reflected from its dancing ripples. 

But if the poetry of the Greeks is not devoted to the description 
of natural beauty, Greek sculpture for ever testifies to their percep¬ 
tion of ideal perfection in form. The polytheism of Greece was the 
province of sculpture, for here its positive and defined outline, its 
strong and self-existing material, fully satisfied the imagination. 
But the hero and the god demanded ideal excellence ; for in them 
humanity was viewed ennobled into a nature imperishable and 
divine. The human form was accordingly represented with the 
greatest symmetry of which the mind could conceive it capable ; 
all that was noble and majestic in nature was collected and 
moulded by the sculptor; all that was gross or inharmonious was 
refined away. Cicero puts this well in a passage of the l( Orator:” 
he says, “ the ingenious artist, when he was tracing out the form 
of a Jupiter or a Minerva, did not borrow the likeness from any 
particular object; but a certain admirable semblance of beauty 
was present to his mind which he viewed and dwelt upon, and 
by which his skill and his hand were guided.” Thus it was that 
the artist embodied the essence of grace, dignity, and power; all 
that was lofty and full of energy stood displayed in the figure of 
the hero—a magical serenity, a heavenly calm, was thrown over 
the whole figure of the god. For in formative art as well as in 
poetry, imagination, when it addresses kindred minds, paints 
nature, not absolutely, but as contemplated by man. It is 
remarkable that, with Christian subjects for the theme, all 
modern sculpture should have been so immeasurably inferior to 
ancient heathen art; while painting seems to have warmed under 
the finger-touch of Christianity, and the great masters have given 
us creations that, like Raffaelle’s, look like beings of celestial 
race, round which the very airs of heaven seem to hover—beings 
too pure for the passions and temptations of humanity. 

Greek art had such command of poetical expression, and 
carried the element of form to such perfection, that works of 
Greek sculptors have as much power over our feelings as the 
highest poetry. We cannot look upon the imperishable monu¬ 
ments of Grecian art without feeling that there is a voice to the 





POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


9 


heart of the living from the works of the dead; that their actions 
and their thoughts are capable of awakening as much ardour 
and emotion as the examples which surround us in our own age, 
or the direct influences of existing nature. 

Thracian tradition celebrated the divinities of Olympus as the 
bringers of good and averters of evil, but nevertheless repre¬ 
sented Zeus as supreme—the father of gods and men, having his 
dwelling in the ether, and supremely governing the world. The 
mythology of the Greeks surrounded them with self-existent 
powers which their creative imagination personified and hu¬ 
manized, making the symbol of the running fountain a Naiad 
pouring her urn ; and of the sun, a fair-haired youth in a golden 
car. Deity appeared near and friendly, and in human form; and it 
was for this reason that sculpture became so peculiarly connected 
with the mythology of Greece, and gave it characteristic ex¬ 
pression. 

The Greeks deified the powers of nature: they found deities in 
wood, mountain, stream, and sea,— 

The cloud-born idols of this lower air. 

The voices of their gods were heard in the roar of the thunder, 
and the murmur of the waves; in the whispering of the pines, 
and the ringing fall of the stream; and thus it was that to the 
Grecian mind, 

The woods that wave o’er Delphi’s steep, 

The isles that crown th’ iEgean deep, 

The fields that cool Ilyssus laves— 

Every old poetic mountain, 

Every shade and hallow’d fountain, 

Inspiration breath’d around. 

But, although the spiritual was made manifest only by sensible 
objects, these superstitions of the Greeks brought tributes to the 
shrine of art which still excite the admiration of the world, and 
to which poetry and sculpture have sent their votaries in every 
age. 

The Greeks may have derived the art of sculpture from the 
Assyrians or the Egyptians, but none of the old Assyrian or 
Egyptian spirit was perpetuated in the works of Greece. Into 







10 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


the grim and colossal character of elder art the Greeks infused 
their own sense and soul: wheresoever it was that they derived 
the first notions of the art, Greek sculptors inspired it with 
grace and beauty, and gave it an expression, and embodied it in 
forms, that were never dreamed of on the banks of Nile. With 
fertile harvests of art they covered the isles of Greece, and shed 
over inanimate marble the grace of a life that is gone. Their 
statues remain to this day unrivalled—undisputed standards of 
the most perfect symmetry of form; and, amid the ruins of “ dead 
empires,” their marble deities seem alone infused with animation. 
So inextinguishable are the sparks of olden fire, amidst the 
scattered reliques of Greek sculpture, that they have animated 
all subsequent plastic art, just as letters owe their preservation 
to Greek poetry—to those equally lasting compositions which the 
sister muse inspired beneath the soft skies and poetic hills of 
Greece. There the sculptor perpetuated in forms of ideal beauty 
the imaginary gods of whom the poet sang ; he invested 
them with the perfections and attributes of unknown divinity, 
and threw the purple light of life over the cold marble forms 
of a fanciful mythology ; and thus 

The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, 

And art reflected images to art. 

I have dwelt thus long on the poetry and sculpture of the 
Greeks, for they are parts of “ the whole extended chain which 
binds us to the Ionic cities of the iEgean sea : ” but after this 
glance at Grecian art, let us now consider the powers of poetry 
in comparison with those of the imitative arts as forms of 
poetical expression. And first let us compare the province and 
power of Painting with the province and power of Sculpture. 
Painting has a much wider scope than sculpture. The imitation 
of nature, or the production of an ideal beauty that rivals nature, 
is the language by which the sculptor addresses the mind ; and 
he relies on the beauty of form and the expression of character for 
his strength, since sculpture is more severe than painting, and 
cannot please the eye by radiance and colour, or the other acces¬ 
sories of pictorial art. The sculptor’s creations must charm not 
by what they seem to be, but by what they are. Painting- 



POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


11 


employs illusion as well as imitation : in painting the variety and 
contrast of colour, the use of chiaroscuro , the glow of sunshine 
and the cool of shade, combine to render life-like and vivid the 
silent poesy of form. Sculpture embodies in the pure, cold, im¬ 
passive marble, the abstract ideal of beauty, the grace and 
sentiment of an action, the form of power. The harmony of rich 
and brilliant colours has a gratifying effect upon the sense of 
sight ; in this respect Painting has an advantage over Sculpture. 
The mellow contrast and rich variety of colouring, with its conse¬ 
quences of light and shade, and its capabilities of perspective, give 
to Painting an infinitely wider range of objects for representa¬ 
tion. Painting and Sculpture assimilate in the representation of 
animated forms and human action; but Painting, by her com¬ 
mand of accessories, aids her illusion, and concentrates at one 
point the attention of the spectator. Painting has been justly 
said to gain effect by contrast, and aggrandize by comparison. 
But Sculpture, cold and colourless, stony and severe, without 
accessories to produce illusion or please the sense before it 
addresses the imagination, must have beauty of conception, 
dignity of character, and consummate force and freedom of out¬ 
line, before it can engage the mind—the creative mind—which 
transfers life and motion to the inanimate representation of perfect 
form. Leonardo da Vinci, when engaged on his immortal picture 
of the Last Supper, and endeavouring to embody in the head of 
the Saviour the sublime image which filled his mind, felt the 
inadequacy of human art to represent the highest of sacred 
themes; and, unmatched as he was in depth of genius, in power of 
reflection, and in knowledge of art, shrank from the attempt to 
embody his conception of Deity interwoven with human nature. 
When at the last moment he delineated the head of the 
Saviour, this completion of his wonderful work was attributed to 
guidance from no mortal hand. The sculptor, no doubt, “might 
work a head of Christ to as noble proportion and fullness as 
Leonardo da Vinci, but the profound, settled light of benignity, 
the look of mercy, the inbreathed holiness,” would elude his art: 
he might make us admire as much, but not feel. As the softer 
enchantments of beauty are found in the eye, in the colouring of 
the face, in the settled light, or the fugitive blush, the sculptor’s 


12 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


representation might only address the mind, while the loveliness 
of the painter’s would enthral the heart. 

From its material and character, Sculpture must be defined and 
decisive; Painting may be indeterminate and vague. In Sculpture 
(I am using the language of the present Mr. Justice Coleridge in 
his Oxford Prize Essay,) all meets the eye; in Painting, more 
(often) is conveyed than meets the eye ; the mind grasps the 
whole in Sculpture, in Painting it ever thinks there is more .to 
grasp. Sculpture fills and satisfies the imagination it addresses; 
Painting exerts the imagination to the utmost limit of its own 
powers. In Sculpture one tone must predominate, one character 
pervade the whole ; but Painting may represent objects in distinct 
contrast; it may reveal only partially, and arouse rather than 
satisfy the imagination. For this reason, perhaps, it was that 
Painting became peculiarly the handmaid of Christianity, as 
Sculpture had been the expression of Greek mythology; for it 
seems as if the sublime to the Christian’s imagination required 
what is vague and indeterminate—what might be expressed by 
Painting, with its partial lights and breadth of shade, its bright 
glimpses and obscure concealments, just as in Poetry some of the 
sublimest images of Dante and of Milton have not the distinct 
outlines which the creations of Homer and Virgil possess. 
Though Painting, therefore, may better suit our solemn hours, 
and inspire our religious meditations, the contemplation of the 
faultless beauty of the masterpieces in ancient Sculpture refines 
the mind, and their chaste grandeur nourishes loftiness of soul and 
delicacy of feeling. Though stronger sympathies attach us to Milton, 
we have room for noble emotions from Virgil; though we may 
enter a holier circle, we linger with delight on classic ground. 

If, now, we compare the powers of Poetry with those of the 
imitative arts, we shall see that Poetry alone grasps an unlimited 
sceptre, and may express whatever human genius can create. 
The poet Coleridge defines the two cardinal points of Poetry to 
be the power of exciting the reader’s sympathy by a faithful 
adherence to the truth of Nature, and the power of giving the 
interest of novelty by the modifying colours of the imagination. 
As Poetry employs verbal signs to suggest to the imagination 
noble grounds for noble thoughts, the greater muse is winged, 


rOETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


13 


and her flight is unshackled by material fetters. The representa¬ 
tions which Poetry addresses to the mind seem to affect it in a 
different manner from that in which natural objects, or the 
painted or sculptured representations of natural objects, affectdt: 
in common with Painting and Sculpture, words excite ideas of 
sublimity and beauty, and address the feelings; but their power 
transcends the power of imitative art. And what additional 
cause do we perceive for gratitude to the Giver of all good gifts, 
when we consider Language, in its progress from the scanty 
requirements of savage life to the gorgeous plenitude of civilised 
intercourse; when (to use the language of an eminent author) 
“we behold it glowing in the song of the poet, and expressing the 
subtlety of the philosopher; ” when we recognise in it the source 
of our purest pleasures, and the channel of our most useful know¬ 
ledge; when we see it fixing the most subtle and evanescent 
flashes of genius, and painting the visions of fancy; giving 
utterance to the lessons of history and the holiest precepts of 
inspiration—the flaming chariot (as it has been called) of the 
oracles of God, dispensing light and life eternal to every inha¬ 
bitant of the globe. The muse of Painting, it is true, employs a 
universal language, for— 

The Pencil speaks the tongue of every land; 

but it is obvious that no imitative art can present all the images 
that may be raised in the mind by words. Painting may be 
mute Poetry; but while Painting is imitative, Poetry is sug¬ 
gestive, and may become articulate Painting, for it can cause the 
most vivid images to flash at once upon the mind: and it is, 
perhaps, because poetical descriptions afford play to the imagina¬ 
tion and to the natural activity of thought, that they have more 
power to affect the mind than the representations of the painter. 
Poetry alone can represent a moving current of human life, can 
lead the mind through a varied action and a succession of 
objects, and can clothe the subject of its description with the 
dignity and the attributes derived from antecedents—from its 
connection with the beings and events of bygone time; whereas 
the painter has but one page on which to represent his story. 
Illustrations of this attribute are familiar to all persons. Let me 




14 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


refer, for example, to Turner’s beautiful view of tlic Tomb of 
Cecilia Metella as a “ tower of strength ” upon the high ground 
above the Appian Way—a view which effectively presents the 

• -stern round tower of other days, 

Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone, 

Such as an army’s baffled strength delays, 

Standing with half its battlements, alone— 


but only the poet’s description invests it with its 

-two thousand years of ivy grown, 

The garland of eternity, where wave 
The green leaves over all by Time o’erthrown ; 


or tells us that 


a woman’s grave 


was the treasure locked within this proud memorial of a hus¬ 
band’s love. Thus, again, it is possible that the appearance of 
Milton’s fallen angel may be as forcibly depicted on canvas as by 
the description of the poet; but the most sublime pencil of Italy 
could not have represented to a spectator those ideas of his 
former glory and his actual state which are suggested by the 
poet’s description:— 

He above the rest, 

In shape and gesture proudly eminent, 

Stood like a tower: his form had not yet lost 
All his original brightness, nor appeared 
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess 
Of glory darkened: as when the Sun, new risen, 

Looks through the horizontal, misty air, 

Shorn of his beams ; or, from behind the moon, 

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
On half the nations. 


And another fine comparison will occur to all readers of Milton’s 
poetry in the description of Satan’s 

-ponderous shield, 

Ethereal-tempered, massy, large, and round, 

Behind him cast: the broad circumference 
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb, 

Through optic glass, the Tuscan artist views 
At evening from the top of Fesole, 

Or in Vald’arno. 












POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


15 


We have in Moir’s little poem of The Old Seaport another 
example of the power of Poetry to raise in the imagination a 
picture which could not receive its full poetical force from the 
ait of the painter. That poem has been very truly said to com¬ 
bine the literal-graphic and the graphic-imaginative, for it brings 
before us the dim old seaport with its sombre sea and sky—just 
such a bit of daguerreotype, with its desolate, grey, and dusky 
features, as Painting could most effectively represent; but also 
leads the mind, by simple, natural links of association, to glance 
over far seas and into foreign lands, and to contrast their stormy 
perils with the peace to which it returns in the old seaport. 
And I might mention many scenes which have been illustrated 
by the historical painter that nevertheless receive only from the 
description of the poet or historian their full solemnity. Thus, 
Reynolds’s picture of the Death of Cardinal Beaufort—master¬ 
piece as it is—fails to impress the mind with the state of the 
conscience - stricken cardinal as portrayed by Shakespeare. 
Again, Poussin’s great picture of the Death of Germanicus 
depicts the affliction of the friends who surround the dying 
prince, but only the historian can invest the scene with its 
affecting interest. 

But it is needless to multiply examples that Poetry can pre¬ 
sent objects and combinations which are not within the province 
of imitative art. The words of Plomer—of “ the great Hellenic 
triumvirate of Athenian tragedy ”—of Dante—of Shakespeare— 
cannot be embodied in sculptured or painted forms: they may 
and do inspire the sculptor or the painter who selects a character 
or an event—the action of a moment of time—for illustration by 
his art; but not the power of Michael Angelo or the grace of 
Raffaelle, the solemnity of Rembrandt or the radiance of Rubens, 
can realise all the pictures of the imagination, or keep the 
animated pageants of the Past moving brightly across our path 
in the Present with kindling power. I need but call to remem¬ 
brance the ideal creations the sublimity of which is derived 
from what is suggested rather than what is portrayed : the 
images of which the charm depends on their succession and 
transition, and their relation to other events—on circumstances 
that can be realised to the imagination only by what Dugald 





16 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Stewart calls the ubiquity of the poet’s eye. Innumerable scenes 
of natural grandeur and picturesque beauty are realised by the 
mind when described in Poetry, which are unfit for the art of 
the painter by reason of their impressiveness being due to quali¬ 
ties or attributes of magnitude, motion, or sound which words 
only can describe. Thus, how can the ripple and glitter, the 
music and motion of the bright and restless waters, be adequately 
portrayed on canvas? How can any pictorial representation of 
Niagara impress the beholder with the slow and solemn majesty 
of its descent? The associative or suggestive imagination may 
indeed supply, or transfer to the representation, those attributes 
which invest the scene with its full impressiveness and grandeur, 
and which poetical descriptions may convey; just as the graphic 
word-painting of Shakespeare raises a complete picture in the 
mind, not only of supernatural objects but of a peaceful landscape 
or an agitated sea. 

A poetical representation which is associated with indistinct 
forms, and terrors suggested rather than defined, and therefore 
incapable of being expressed by Painting or Sculpture, can 
collect before the mind an instantaneous picture, full of ideal 
sublimity and grandeur. I might give many examples: there is 
Virgil’s description of Jupiter, shrouding his power in tempests 
and clouds of darkness, his presence revealed by lightning: there 
is Milton’s description of the passage of the fallen angels, where 
it is from the 

-rocks, caves, dens, and shades— 

being those of Death, that the image derives its gloomy force: 
there is the mythological attribute of the eagle as armour-bearer 
of Jove, which so greatly augments the image of strength con¬ 
veyed by the flight of the noble bird: and there are the obscured 
images and undefined terrors by which Milton surrounds 

•-the other shape— 

If shape it might be called that shape had none 
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,— 

Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, 

For each seemed either,—black it stood as Night, 

Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell, 

And shook a dreadful dart. What seemed his head 
The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 





POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


17 


Many of Shakespeare’s poetical pictures and ideal conceptions 
belong exclusively to the domain of Poetry. Who (it has been 
asked) can weave with material colours the fine texture of Ariel? 
Who can fix in the eye of Prospero the magician’s light? Who 
can plant on the forehead of Macbeth the words of the Witches’ 
prophecy, or portray the weird sisters that darkly traverse the 
imagination, or realise the spectacle suggested by the poet when 

Before the Scot, afflicted and aghast, 

The shadowy kings of Banquo’s fated line 

Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant passed. 

Idaydon says the finest conception of a ghost that was ever 
painted was Fuseli’s Ghost in Hamlet: it quivered on the 
battlements with martial stride, and pointed to a place of meeting 
with the Prince of Denmark; round the vizored head was a blaze 
of light that seemed unearthly, and the dim moon was seen glit¬ 
tering behind the castle upon the agitated sea. But this was not 
the ghost drawn by Shakespeare, for there were no human 
sympathies about it—no “ sable silvered beard,” or countenance 
more in sorrow than in anger. 

In the Holy Scriptures, the metaphorical descriptions of the 
inspired writers are full of sublime images, which are as inca¬ 
pable of pictorial representation as Deity itself. Innumerable 
examples might he given in which a sublime representation of 
divine attributes is conveyed by animated personifications and by 
metaphors drawn from natural objects associated with grandeur, 
terror, and power. 

Where, however, Poetry appeals to the imagination by images 
which can receive material form and permanence, Sculpture 
enforces their power with all the charm of its striking reality, 
and Painting fixes them with all the magic of its vivid illusion. 
Painting and Sculpture, it is true, can 

Steal but a passing glance from Time ; 

but the painter may in that glance concentrate a picture which 
Poetry could present to the imagination only by accumulated 
images, or a succession of descriptive epithets. The painter, 
therefore, can address the heart as eloquently as the poet, where 
the subject or the action represented is capable of complete repre- 







18 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


sentation in Painting; indeed in these cases the painter s language 
is more effective than the poet’s, chiefly because, as Horace has 
memorably remarked, what passes before the trusty eyes affects 
us more than what we hear; the eyes are less credulous and more 
difficult to persuade than the ears. How many combinations 
there are, the effect of which upon the feelings is due to the in¬ 
stantaneous insight which Painting gives. The result of a 
gradually acquired knowledge of what is thus presented to the 
kindling eye at a glance would never be so affecting; but Paint¬ 
ing renders the appeal sudden and complete, and takes the heart 
by storm before it is prepared. And the greatest of the Painter’s 
advantages is derived from the animating charm of colour which 
has such subtle power over the mind, whether beheld in Nature 
or imitated by art:—colour, which of all God’s gifts to earth has 
been truly called the holiest and most divine; for what (as our 
eloquent friend Mr. Ruskin asks) would our existence be if the 
blue were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, 
the bright green from the leaves, and the crimson from the 
cheek ? What would the face of Nature become if the cool 
pearly tint of n^orning was not thrown upon the sea, the verdant 
brightness of spring or the gorgeous hues of autumn seen on the 
woods, or the rich glow of sunset in the sky ? It is colour that 
clothes the design in Painting, as words convey the thought in 
Poetry, and the use of rich colour in Painting seems to corre¬ 
spond to that of poetical imagery in a poem: thus Homer’s 
expression has been compared with the colouring of some great 
masters. But the imagery of a poem does not constitute its 
poetry, nor can the mere colour in Painting supply the want of 
loftiness of thought, unity of design, and harmony of compo¬ 
sition: thus Cicero, in speaking of Oratory, tells us that com¬ 
position and gracefulness of style consist in words, but that 
majesty and dignity of style are due to sentiments. These are 
equally essential to the poet and the painter, and a true judgment 
in this particular is what constitutes Taste—that controlling 
power of genius which gives the crowning charm, whether 
viewed on the canvas of Raffaelle or the pages of Homer. 

In the arrangement or composition of subjects, and their due 
relief, there is a marked affinity between the pictorial and the 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


19 


poetic art. The principles of harmony are the same, whether 
perceived by the mind through the medium of measured sound 
and euphonous language, or by the eye through the harmonious 
disposition of objects and forms, the judicious use of colour, and 
the distribution ol light and shade. The lights and shadows 
which the painter distributes must be preserved in the compo¬ 
sition ol the poet; a due subordination of parts is likewise to be 
observed in the arrangement of the objects represented in Poetry 
as well as in Painting, so that the character or action presented 
may be brought into prominence with all the force and brilliancy 
of which the descriptive art is capable, those features which are 
merely accessory being cast into shadow. As judicious colouring 
and artistic arrangement render a picture effective and pleasing, 
so beauty of imagery and harmony of composition are essential 
to poetic expression in verse. In Homer’s poetry, where pro¬ 
gressive actions are described, each object delineated has a defi¬ 
nite relation to them, and is generally introduced with only one 
distinguishing quality or characteristic, for, in the lofty and 
heroic subjects of epic poetry, strength, consistency, and grandeur 
are to be realised; and these are in like manner the objects at 
which the painter aims, as we see in the best works of the great 
masters, in which we see simplicity in treatment and a grandeur 
of conception that addresses the soul. As the mind receives 
from the judicious employment of the means of expression in Art 
the same kind of pleasure that it derives from the harmonious 
combination of objects in Nature, so harmony of colouring and 
beauty of form seem to affect the mind as harmony in music 
does. The great masters of antiquity excelled in knowledge of 
the principles of harmony and proportion no less than in that 
picturesque element of graceful contour and ideal form which is 
as essential to the poetical expression of a picture as beauty of 
imagery and harmony of numbers are to a poem. And the great 
quality of fidelity to Nature is as essential in Poetry as in the 
imitative arts. It was by that intuition of genius which regards 
Art as the interpreter of Nature that the greatest sculptors, 
painters, and poets have achieved their enduring successes. It 
is their wondrous fidelity to the true ideal of natural beauty that 
has given such immortality to the works of the old Greek sculp- 







20 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


tors; it is their devotion to the truth of Nature, as well as their 
grace and grandeur of expression, uniting 

All a painter’s art, and all a minstrel’s flame, 

that raise the works of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle to theii 
acknowledged pre-eminence; it is his truth to Nature, and his 
knowledge of the human heart, that have made Shakespeare the 
poet of all time. 

But I need say no more about canons of art, which I am sure 
will not be disputed, nor pursue my comparison of the Muse 
of Painting with her elder sister ol Poetry, for I doubt not we 
shall with Roscoe recognise her as 

- The power in whom conjoined 

Their differing excellence is shown, 

Yet sweetly blended and combined 
With charms peculiarly her own. 

And now let us take a passing glance at Architecture —that 
Queen of the Imitative Arts—which, although an art entirely 
practical and subservient to our wants, is akin to Poetry in its 
close connection with the imagination and its power over our 
feelings; an art which has inspired our poets, and enshrined our 
faith; an art which has raised edifices so majestic, that a celestial 
presence seems to dwell in them upon the earth, and which has 
rendered all other arts tributary to its service. 

Allegory placed the statues of Painting, Sculpture, and Archi¬ 
tecture as the mourners round the tomb of Michel Angelo; but 
it has been said that we do not pay due honour to Architecture, 
if we consider her the sister and equal of the arts that are 
founded on the imitation of Nature. Architecture consults 
Nature for lessons, not for models; she combines the graceful 
leaf, the binding tendril, and the spreading floweret, in her sum- 
bolic language, and raises a structure which, like a great epic 
poem, becomes the living evidence of the manners, the know¬ 
ledge, and the aspirations of a people, whether read in the 
porticoes of Palmyra or the cathedrals of Christendom. We see 
this glorious art impressed by the national genius of each people, 
whether we view its elaborate and grotesque forms in the 
mysterious cave temples of Hindostan, or its sombre and gigantic 





POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


21 


massiveness in tlie pictured monuments of Egypt; whether we 
trace its antique strength in the disinterred palaces where the 
kings of Assyria reigned amidst the sculptured awe-inspiring 
emblems of power, or follow its graceful varieties and adaptations 
in the East from the Byzantine prototypes of Moorish architecture; 
whether we view the stern solidity of Egyptian and Hindoo mas¬ 
siveness moulded by the Greek mind, to the pure creations that 
are beautiful even in ruin upon the classic lands of Greece, or see 
it reflecting the pride and majesty of ancient Rome in the 
graceful architecture of the eternal city; or, tracing it from the 
Roman times through the earliest edifices of the Gothic style in 
Europe, and through its characteristic transformations in the 
middle ages—behold it at length enthroned in the stupendous 
minsters of York and Lincoln, of Amiens and Cologne. 

I have said that Architecture combines the forms of Nature in 
her symbolic language, and the Pointed style itself is, as we 
all know, fancifully said to have been suggested by 

The arcades of a forest walk, 

and to emulate, in its lengthening naves and aisles, an avenue of 
stately trees; and we do not wonder at this derivation when 
we stand in many a great cathedral of the thirteenth and four¬ 
teenth centuries, and see stretching far away long parallel rows 
of clustered columns, terminating in graceful chaplets of leaves 
and flowers; and we seem to be surrounded by majestic stems 
rising at measured distances, and branching into vaulted canopies 
overhead, interlacing with luxuriant foliage ; while around us, 
through every bay of pillars, as through the vistas of a woodland 
walk, the rays stream in through forms of traceried stone, but, 

Awed by a holy presence, sadly fair, 

The daylight enters reverently there. 

It would, however, be out of place here to inquire what may 
have been the origin of Gothic Architecture; suffice it to say, 
that the patient labour of Indian art, the towering magnificence 
of Egypt, the unfettered strength and splendour of Rome, the 
purity and refinement of Greece, all unite to receive a higher 
crown and exhibit a loftier majesty in the hallowed shrines of 
Christian art. 







22 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


If Christianity in the early ages of its history caused the fine 
arts of ancient heathen nations to decline, ecclesiastical architec¬ 
ture in a later age consecrated the spoils of heathenism to the 
service of the Cross, and the sister arts came reverentially to 
adorn the stately monuments that Architecture raised. In the 
middle ages, too, the popular sympathies went with the develop¬ 
ment of art, and a nation rejoiced on every addition to the 
Solemn splendours of a cathedral as it would have hailed the 
triumphs of a conqueror. 

Architecture is based, like all the fine arts, on harmony of 
quantities—on those harmonious laws of proportion which affect 
the mind like a mathematical truth, and charm the eye as a 
concord of musical sounds might charm the ear; and geometrical 
proportion and musical harmony might both be regarded as 
having their source in the secret caverns of the mind, like the 
perception of beauty in nature and in art ; and (as an able 
reviewer has said) the paths which have conducted a Galileo or a 
Newton to the profoundest abstractions seem to start also from 
the sweet portals of musical sound. And there is, indeed, the 
closest relation between Church-Architecture and Poetry: from 
Shakespeare to Scott—from Milton to Keble—Church-Architec¬ 
ture has proved a source of inspiration to our poets ; and, 
employing, instead of words, the produce of the quarry and the 
forest for its materials, a fine cathedral rears (as Mr. Ruskin has 
eloquently said) its grey cliffs of stone, its towers, and spires, and 
pinnacles, far above the populous city into the midst of sailing 
birds and silent air, and stands a stately monument of sacred art 
—an epic in stone,—giving perpetual expression to the holy 
thoughts of those who reared it, and raising on high the conti¬ 
nual melody of its beauty, its grandeur, and its strength. 

A general analogy has likewise been traced, by other than 
merely fanciful writers, between Architecture and Music. These 
charming arts may undoubtedly be said to resemble each other 
in their power over the feelings, in their metrical structure, and 
in the correspondence of symbolism in Architecture to words in 
Music. A distinct analogy, too, has been traced between the 
three styles of Pointed Architecture and the three styles of Music 
in harmony which have culminated at successive times. In 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


23 


First-Pointed or Early-English Architecture, symbolism was 
paramount; in the Middle-Pointed or Decorated style it seems 
to have been declining; and in Third-Pointed or Perpendicular 
Architecture to have become extinct. So, the earliest musical 
style was altogether vocal, the second is equally adapted to 
voices and instruments, and the third is peculiarly an instru¬ 
mental style. The most important change that has taken place 
in the music of the Church was the substitution of music in 
harmony for music in unison, and that change is regarded as 
analogous to the change in Christian Architecture from Ro¬ 
manesque to Pointed. The invention of music in harmony was 
nearly contemporaneous with that of Pointed Architecture, hut 
the development of Music has been gradual, while Pointed 
Architecture rapidly attained maturity. The three successive 
styles of music in harmony are the style of Palestrina and Tallis, 
of Pergolesi and Kent, of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, to which 
the epithets “sublime,” “beautiful,” and “ornate,” may be 
respectively applied, as they may to First-Pointed, Middle- 
Pointed, and Third-Pointed Architecture. So, too, in the 
flowing melody of the Italian style of Pergolesi a correspondence 
is traced to the flowing tracery of the later Decorated Architec¬ 
ture. Again, an analogy has been found between the three styles 
of Music and the three styles of Painting, which may equally be 
characterised as the sublime, the beautiful, and the ornate. 

But I must not lengthen this lecture by pursuing the relations 
between Music and Architecture and Music and Painting, yet I 
am tempted to illustrate the affinities of the sister arts and their 
kindred influence on human genius from the lives of many 
eminent favourites of the muses. We find many great masters 
of form who have excelled in Poetry— 

Whose magic touch could bid the canvas glow, 

Or pour the easy rhyme’s harmonious flow ; 

and their love for Music indicates a mysterious affinity between 
the organ of Music and the organs of form and colour. There is 
a mystic relation between the perception of sweet sounds in 
Music and of harmonious colouring as well as beautiful form in 
Painting; and cither the mute poetry of form or the articulate 






24 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


poetry of Music can raise noble and tender thoughts and be 
made the utterance of emotion. We know that a law of harmo¬ 
nious vibration holds in Optics as in Music;—that as each of the 
seven harmonic sounds has its peculiar effect on the organ of 
hearing and through the auditory nerves upon the mind, so each 
of the seven colours of the rainbow has its peculiar effect on the 
organs of sight when separately transmitted, and that through 
the series of colours as well as through the series of sounds a 
strictly analogous proportion prevails. Rich colours in Painting 
answer to concords in Music. Chiaroscuro has been called the 
musical element of Painting, and design in Painting seems to 
correspond to melody in Music. 

More than one famous sculptor in ancient Greece was first a 
painter. Cimabue—the restorer of art in Italy in the thirteenth 
century—was both an architect and a painter. Leonardo da 
Vinci was an architect and a poet as well as a painter, and his 
descriptions of events and scenes have been thought to possess all 
the force of pictures. Andrea Orcagna—the most celebrated of 
the artists who closed the period of the Florentine school which 
Giotto had begun, was the Michel Angelo of his age, and—like 
that illustrious Titan in art—successfully cultivated Architec¬ 
ture, Sculpture, and Painting. Michel Angelo was, moreover, 
a musician and a poet. Raffaelle was a poet as well as a painter; 
and as to Rubens, the biographers assert that this great colourist 
(who spoke fluently seven languages, was skilled in many 
sciences, and was an accomplished diplomatist,) was so sensitive 
to the influences of Poetry, that before he took up his palette 
for the day he was accustomed to read or hear fine passages from 
the ancient poets, to release his mind from the trammels of low- 
thoughted care, and waft his fancy to the airy regions of imagi¬ 
nation. 

The two most famous colourists of the Florentine school— 
Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo—were remarkable for 
their love of music. Leonardo was no less admired at Milan as 
a musician than as a painter; and Vasari, in his Life of Fra Bar¬ 
tolomeo, tells us that musical compositions possessed for him an 
irresistible charm. He represents that pious and enthusiastic 
artist preparing himself for death by employing his pencil on 





POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 25 

votive offerings, and returning to Florence with a new inspi¬ 
ration in the love of music which threw a charm over the 
remainder of his life. So, too, Correggio, who (in the words of 
Rio,) surpassed every other artist in the magical effect of his 
colouring, had experienced such vivid and delicious impressions 
from music, that in the sleep immediately preceding his death he 
dreamed he had met Palestrina in heaven—a vision which he 
regarded as a foretaste of eternal bliss. Among the Venetian 
painters the passion for music was almost universal—at all events 
in the second period of the Venetian school which closes with 
the sixteenth century. The introduction of the most illustrious 
amongst them as the performers of a concert, in the magnificent 
picture of the Marriage at Cana, which forms one of the greatest 
ornaments of the Louvre, was no arbitrary fiction, for certain of 
them were in the habit of meeting frequently in order to taste 
this pleasure in common. 

It was one of the daily enjoyments of Titian, that, in the small 
palace which he occupied opposite the island of Murano, he was 
within hearing of the soft and harmonious songs that were wafted 
at sunset, and often throughout the night, from the many gon¬ 
dolas which at that time animated this part of the Lagune, now 
so silent and deserted. This reminds one of Byron’s love for the 
music that came to him “ over the waters.” Giorgione, as Vasari 
relates, sang and played so divinely on the lute, that he was often 
invited to preside at the concerts of the Patricians. Tintoretto 
possessed this two-fold talent almost to the same degree; and the 
argument is not drawn from the Venetian school alone. Ben¬ 
venuto Garofalo of Ferrara, who was no less admirable than 
Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio in the choice and combination 
of his colours, consoled himself under the deprivation of sight in 
his later years by musical gratifications. An illustrious example 
to the same effect is afforded in our own country. Milton was 
early instructed in music. His poetry (as Campbell remarks) 
gives us the idea that he was habituated to inspiration under the 
influence of music, and he fully recognises its importance in 
education. England has never been rich in great colourists, but 
the life of at least one great English painter—I mean Gains¬ 
borough—exemplifies the conjoint influence of the Muses. It 






26 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


is said that at the end of a concert he would sometimes bestow 
one of his landscapes on the musician who had delighted him. 

I bring forward these instances to illustrate the alliance of the 
Arts, not the capacities of individual temperament; and as we 
find that several muses have been thus propitious to one 
votary, it seems that genius can accumulate distinct functions in 
one individual, and this without the consequence which resulted 
in the case of the pianoforte-maker celebrated by Macaulay, who 
added to his original business that of a baker, whereby his cus¬ 
tomers had both much worse music and much worse bread. 

It is not alone the most highly-gifted of artists, the great 
masters in Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, who have also 
yielded homage to Poetry and Music: a love for these has been 
very generally found allied with a taste for the Fine Arts in 
every civilised nation. Music as well as Poetry has asserted 
the universality of its empire over men, but Music has been 
said to reign over a greater number of hearts than either sister 
muse. So, likewise, most persons who are fond of Poetry and 
the Imitative Arts are also fond of Music: thus, the poet Rogers 
speaks of himself as having received from Nature 

■-What most he values— 

A passionate love for Music, Sculpture, Painting, 

For Poetry—the language of the Gods, 

For all things that are grand and beautiful. 

But Music, as Metastasio remarked, possesses that advantage 
over Poetry which a universal language must have over a national 
one. We have remains which prove that civilized nations in 
remote antiquity yielded homage to Music, while none have come 
down to us to show that they had any knowledge of Poetry, or 
of any but the rudest art in Painting or Sculpture. An early 
Greek author has said that Music is the most ancient of all arts; 

and truly the great majority of mankind have been her votaries_ 

men uniting in love of Music who agree in nothing else; and it 
seems as if the Supreme Giver of all good had inspired this gift 
with an especial love, as the gift which the world could have the 
least power to deaden or pervert, and which might be the most 
fitly devoted to His praise. 

In the times of heathen antiquity the poets represented Music 



POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


27 


as joined with, the knowledge of Divine things; and long before 
the cultivation of letters in Greece, Music was well known in 
Egypt—the birthplace of Religion, and once the mart of the 
civilised world. What Tasso said, three centuries ago, of Music 
and Poetry—viz. that they are sister arts, gifted with power to 
lift the heart to God, and animate the language of devotion— 
was felt, three thousand years before, among the people of Israel. 
In every period of their history the Hebrews were accustomed to 
celebrate their gratitude to God in songs of joy. The Hebrew 
ode was adapted to sacred melody; and, under the government 
of David, tire arts of Music and Poetry, in combination, attained 
the most flourishing state they ever enjoyed among the Jews. 
The splendour of his establishment for the service of the Temple 
indicates the original dignity and grandeur of sacred Music, as 
joined to that wondrous fabric of devotional Poetry which has 
ever since proved so suited to human feelings and aspirations. 

That the earliest music was simple we may well believe, for 
simple music is well suited to be the handmaid of Religion, and 
to affect the heart; and we still find the music to which nations 
are attached the most simple and the most affecting, just as in 
Ireland some striking melodies are traditionally preserved which 
are said to ascend a period as remote as the conversion of the 
island. 

From the earliest times of Grecian civilisation, Music appears 
to have been inseparable from Poetry, and to have been used 
especially in the celebration of divine rites. In former ages 
Orpheus and Linus, who taught Music to man, were fabled to be 
descended of the Gods; and sometimes, as we learn from Plato, 
legal authority solemnly sanctioned those sacred songs which 
assumed the form of addresses to the divinities and the name of 
hymns. 

That the Greeks had musical instruments we know, from their 
sculptured representations, from references made to them, and 
indeed from extant treatises on the art of making and using them 
—treatises, however, which are not likely to be referred to in 
the present day, except as curiosities. It does not give us a very 
high idea of the ancient Greek Music when we find that one of 
those instruments seems to have been a bagpipe; still I do not 





28 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


mean to speak disrespectfully of that primitive instrument, espe¬ 
cially as it probably gave rise to the organ; but the harp is 
represented as the companion of Apollo, and Aristotle is said to 
have written a treatise on the flute. 

It is even thought that remains of Greek music have come 
down to us. The Greeks did not understand part-singing, but 
three hymns were found in a Greek manuscript at Rome, one of 
which is a hymn to Nemesis, and is said to be a pleasing air; and 
in the ancient ecclesiastical chants there is little doubt that the 
Church of Rome preserved remains of the old Greek music. But 
(as a writer of our day has well remarked) the first few centuries 
of the Christian sera have transmitted no sounds to posterity. We 
“ know nothing of the low chanting which echoed in the cata¬ 
combs of Rome, which Constantine listened to and St. Ambrose 
reformed;” and, save the tradition of the Ambrosian Chant, which 
was used in the reign of Theodosius and continued to the time of 
Gregory the Great, it is not until the end of the sixth century 
that the silence is broken by the Gregorian tones, “ which rise 
up from the vast profound of the past like heralds of a dawning 
world of sound,—pure, - solemn, but expressionless ; ” and a 
thousand years elapsed before Palestrina spiritualised the music 
of the Church. 

So that the musical remains of antiquity which have come 
down to us are very slender compared with the productions 
inspired by the sister Muses in Italy’s rich and regal past. 

But to conclude my comparison of Music with Painting and 
Poetry. Although Music has such power to raise emotions of the 
soul, it cannot express incident, or situation, or form, or colour. 
It cannot narrate, inform, or reason. It is an expression of 
the feelings and the fancy. We all know that there is music 
which may tell its own tale without any words for an inter¬ 
preter—music which a player of taste and poetic feeling can 
render the utterance of emotion and a discourse full of poetry, 
capable of appealing to the feelings like a fine work of the sister 
art. Mozart’s devotional music, it has been said, is the true 
voice of supplication; and the “ sculptured grandeur” of Handel’s 
recitative fulfils our highest conception of Divine utterance. 
Beethoven’s celebrated Mass is a wonderful tableau of musical 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


29 


painting; and what a charm we feel in the scenery (so to speak) 
of some of his Symphonies! The tempest in his Pastoral Sym¬ 
phony has been likened to a scene in Thomson’s Seasons set to 
music. On the other hand, how utterly Haydn’s attempt to 
describe sunrise by musical notes fails to give us any idea of what 
Weber has called that magnificent crescendo of Nature! There 
is much dramatic music that truthfully expresses passion, and 
there is some imitative music, Handel’s Hailstone Chorus for 
example, which impresses a sense of sublimity, for it is a forcible 
piece of sound-painting, in which sounds suggest images of 
terror to the mind; but the highest musical pleasure cannot be 
derived from the best imitative music; nor can the cultivated 
taste derive any pleasure at all from that so-called “ descriptive” 
music, which, as aiming at delusion, is unworthy of the art. 
Can we listen, for example, to the musical accompaniment to the 
words “ their land brought forth frogs,” without perceiving its 
ridiculous practical mimicry? Those things seem best adapted 
to musical expression for which Music supplies a sort of natural 
and universal language. 

It may now be interesting to glance briefly at the state of the 
sister arts from the time of their being attracted to Italy, while 
Rome w T as “ the magnet of nations.” 

But, before that Roman name w’as heard which afterwards 
filled the world, art was not unknown in Italy. A multitude of 
remains at this day bear testimony to the splendour and refine¬ 
ment of the Etruscan people long before the origin of Rome; 
and the Paintings and other works of the Etruscans show the 
influence of Greek genius. So likewise, in a later age, other 
western lands of the Mediterranean received their civilisation and 
their arts from Grecian isles; and the Western world owed the 
very preservation of letters to compositions which the muse of 
Poetry had inspired amidst scenes consecrated by the genius of 
ancient time. “Thoughts winged on Grecian words” were 
communicated to the Western world before Rome received from 
Greece those imitative and constructive arts which the Romans 
moulded to their service—those arts which were destined to find 
their home in Italy long after genius should be extinct in Greece 




30 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


itself, and when only ruin should occupy the land that gave 
them birth. But before the days of the Empire, and even in the 
time of Cicero, when Rome was old, Architecture and Sculpture, 
Poetry and Painting, were arts which Rome knew only as 
imported from Greece, and practised only as adapted to civil 
uses; for, when the arts were cultivated by the Romans, none 
were valued that could not become the handmaids of her martial 
spirit. Poetry was not cultivated until its charms reflected the 
genius of a Court; Architecture had not then begun to employ 
the magnificence of order and the grace of proportion on any 
buildings but those of public utility and worship; and Sculpture 
adorned the places of assembly only with the statues of those 
whose public virtues were to be set before the people. And 
during the Republic the march of the Romans seems to have 
effaced the footsteps of the Muses in the western lands of Gre¬ 
cian civilisation, as if Art was too delicate for a soldier-people, 
whose utilitarian roads, aqueducts, coliseums, and other gigantic 
works have been justly said to stand no less contradistinguished 
from the temples and academies of speculative Greece than does 
the practical Code of Justinian from the metaphysical abstrac¬ 
tions of Plato. The Romans seem to have been more capable of 
doing than of imagining great actions; and, under the rule of 
the Roman Emperors, it seemed as if the luxurious sensuality 
of the Empire was not favourable to the genius of those Hellenic 
arts which had gone hand in hand with the genius of the nation 
in days 

When glory knew no clime beyond her Greece. 

There was an elegance in the Grecian mind which affords a 
remarkable contrast to the manners of Rome under the Emperors. 
Look, for example, at the application of art to the commonest 
appurtenances of domestic life. The Greeks gave the stamp of 
beauty to everything they touched. When they adopted the 
Eastern custom of reclining at their meals, they exhausted tasteful 
invention in the fashion of their couches; they graced their 
dinner-tables by articles of use, from which the moderns borrow 
the best of their models; and the same refinement of taste which 
formed their drinking-vessels, wreathed the cup with flowers, and 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


31 


bound the brow with the mystic chaplet of myrtle—the inspirer 
ol refined thoughts. But, after the conquest of Greece, and the 
removal of art and artists to Rome, the spirit which had inspired 
the arts of Sculpture and Painting seems to have fled the land, 
and pictorial art was characterised only by a corrupt taste for 
gorgeous decoration. In Poetry, however, as well as in Oratory, 
History, and Jurisprudence, a new stage of intellectual progress 
began with the Augustan age, as it did with our Elizabethan 
era. The Romans of the Empire had at their command the 
whole fabric of that Greek philosophy of which we have only 
disjointed fragments to found our modern knowledge. Rome 
has been called the living synthesis of nations; and, as she 
sought politically to mould all the families of man into one 
community, so she made a composite art, literature, and phi¬ 
losophy of her own from the intellectual riches of the Greeks. 
When Greece ceased to be isolated, the Muses no longer inspired 
her people, and from the decay of Greek liberty and genius 
Roman Poetry arose; but, as we all know, the Poetic Muse made 
her home in Italy during only a short period of the national 
existence, attaining a culminating point when Virgil sang from 
the marble halls of Augustus Caesar. But, whereas among the 
Greeks every phase of the national existence had its own cha¬ 
racteristic poetry, and all ranks of the people had been votaries 
of the Poetic Muse, the poetic literature of the Romans extends 
over a comparatively short period, was not dedicated to human 
life in action, was cultivated successfully by few, and addressed 
a comparatively small class of the people. It was natural, however, 
that in Italy, which had then lured into her embrace all lovers of 
the beautiful, the Italian poets of the Empire should derive from 
their own country a sensibility to the beauty of nature; and, to a 
poetical power of depicting natural beauty, they added gravity, 
earnestness, and moral fervour. So closely did Roman poets 
study nature, that Virgil’s “ grave majestic verse” is thought to 
sound in the ear what it conveys to the mind; and in some of 
the grander lines of Lucretius critics fancifully hear echoes from 
the ocean as it breaks upon the shore—solemn and monotonous, 
yet with cadences of more sonorous music. 

But, while imperial Rome was adorning her temples and luxu- 




32 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


rious palaces with all the noblest tributes of art that she could 
bring from subject-lands, a power that had its birth-place in 
Jerusalem was advancing in the first centuries of the Christian 
era, which was destined to discard the fables of heathen mytho¬ 
logy, and depose the heroes of ancient worship: Christianity 
came, with its own legends and its austere symbols, and pro¬ 
claimed heroes superior to them all; and Rome herself was des¬ 
tined to yield to the conquerors who came in the Redeemer’s 
might. But Christianity asked no aid from the fine arts of 
heathen nations; and in the catacombs, amid the most solemn 
inspirations the world has known, the confessors of Christ cele¬ 
brated in gloom and persecution the mysteries of their faith. 
Long ages were to elapse before the Church of the true God was 
to be set on high among the people, and was to bid art revive, 
and become thenceforth consecrated to His service. On the rude 
walls of subterranean caverns, and above the tombs of martyrs, 
the first Christian artists traced works which they hoped would 
remain the lasting memorials of a superhuman faith and fervour: 
the pictured formularies of human lives and hopes, which Poetry 
came not to celebrate, nor History to preserve. When Christianity 
triumphed, the Muses met no encouragement from the anti-pagan 
zeal of the Christians. They are said to have put ropes round 
the necks of many a marble Venus and Apollo, to have tried 
them publicly like criminals, found them guilty of heathenism 
and beauty, and pounded them to dust. One cannot think with¬ 
out lively indignation of the similar scenes that were enacted in 
our country more than twelve hundred years afterwards, when the 
Puritans and Reformers raged with the fury of iconoclasm, and 
rose to outrage and deface the solemn temples of God in which 
they had just before worshipped. Then, after the downfall of 
the Roman Empire, and the irruption in Italy of barbarous 
nations— enemies alike to Christianity and to classic art—even 
civilisation underwent eclipse. Amid the ruins of Rome and 
other cities of Italy, the Church alone preserved ancient learning, 
and alone afforded a sanctuary to those arts which were con¬ 
ducive to her service; but the rigid forms and materials of the 
Christian art of those days gave little scope to genius, nor did 
Architecture yet afford a theatre for its encouragement; still, 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


33 


neither Music nor Painting seem to have wholly fled the land. 
When, however, the Christian faith was acknowledged through- 
out the Roman Empire, a second period of the development of 
Christian art began; and, instead of the allegorical forms in 
which she had symbolised her faith in the ages of persecution, the 
Church could now represent images of beatitude and triumph, 
and place the figure of her Lord in a pre-eminent majesty as the 
Light of the AVorld. The accession of Charlemagne gave a new 
impulse to the Fine Arts throughout the whole Empire of the 
AVest: the mission of inspecting the churches and paintings 
formed part of the functions of the royal envoys. Italian art had 
before this time found its way to England, where the lamp of 
learning shone brightly from this remote diocese of Christendom. 
To the union of Poetry and Music, and the cultivation, to some 
degree, of both in our own country, even in the remote times of 
the Saxon Heptarchy when society was in a disturbed and an 
almost barbarous state, full testimony remains; and (as Mitford 
remarks) it is a curious coincidence, that in so widely distant an 
age as the reign of our great Alfred, and in this remote home of 
civilisation, Poetry and Music should have been united much in 
the same way as they were in ancient Greece. But some cen¬ 
turies that passed after the time of Charlemagne are illumined by 
no rays of genius in the southern lands where the Muses had 
formerly breathed inspiration upon their votaries. At length the 
silver-winged messengers appeared : a new light and spirit moved 
upon the face of the earth. Art, like the Dardan wanderer, 
had found the golden bough, and, led by Religion among the 
saintly forms of holiness, devoutly aspired to find the abode of the 
heavenly Father. 

In Italy, the latter half of the thirteenth century—that is to 
say, a period contemporary with our Edward the First—is illus¬ 
trated in Poetry with the grand and solitary name of Dante, and 
in Painting with the name of Cimabue, who was its reviver and 
regenerator in Italy, and who, like the graceful and expressive 
Giotto, his successor, shone as an isolated light in the long- 
darkened world of mediseval art. It was not long before the 
time of Cimabue that modern Architecture freed itself from the 
classic yoke; and it is gratifying to our national pride that we 

D 





34 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


are able to trace that change in Italy to the influence of the 
English style of Gothic Architecture. If it was from Italy that 
the Fine Arts first came into England (and I need not here 
narrate what the Anglo-Saxon Church owed to Rome for the 
Romanesque architecture, the music, and the art of illuminating 
manuscripts which she successfully cultivated from the time that 
the venerable Abbat Benedict brought the productions of distant 
lands to adorn his great monasteries of Jarrow and Wearmouth); 
if, I say, it was from Italy that Art was transplanted to our 
country, it was from England that Gothic Architecture was 
introduced into Italy. To Cardinal Guala, a potential legate 
known in English affairs of state in the last years of the reign of 
King John, that introduction has been ascribed. And an 
Englishman may also reflect with pride that Painting was suc¬ 
cessfully practised in England (though, perhaps, only in the 
service of Architecture) contemporaneously with the restoration 
of the art of Painting by Cimabue in Italy. The magnificent 
monuments of architectural skill and splendour that were erected 
from the time of the Conquest to the close of the thirteenth 
century afforded abundant scope for the employment of archi¬ 
tects, sculptors, and painters. Henry the Third at least deserves 
this praise—that he was the first English sovereign who paid 
attention to those arts; and by him, as by Edward the First, 
their professors appear to have been liberally employed. The 
reigns of the Plantagenets were indeed a glorious epoch for art; 
they wrote the narratives of Scripture-history (as somebody has 
well said) on vast illuminated leaves of glass; their monumental 
memorials are a style of sculpture unsurpassed in any age or 
country of Europe; and the rising commercial greatness of 
England fostered the arts without degrading them, and enriched 
our land with forms of grace and beauty. 

But in medieval times neither Sculpture nor Painting attained 
in England a development equal to that of Architecture. The 
Pointed style—at once original and Christian—unadulterated by 
those associations of heathenism which infect the walls of every 
antique edifice, seems to have been created for a new and purer 
faith; and it spread rapidly and simultaneously over the chief 
part of Christendom, but in no country attained more character- 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


istic purity, majesty, and grace than in Great Britain. Its rapid 
naturalisation and its luxuriant development have been attri¬ 
buted to its fitness to give expression to our faith, our love and 
hope. Gothic Architecture (as a gifted writer well observes) 
creeps not along the ground like the horizontal line of the pagan 
temple, nor the low-roofed mosque of the Moslem, but aspires as 
with the prayers of worshippers. Greatness, massiveness, and 
sublimity were felt to be needful elements for the material temple 
of the Eternal: in vastness and altitude the architects of old 
sought utterance; their vaulted roofs conveyed the impression of 
sublimity; their clustered pillars were full of symbolic expres¬ 
sion ; and their vast dimensions and shadowy aisles set forth the 
Christianas sense of the greatness and unsearchable presence of 
God:— 

While far away, and high above, 

In maze on maze the tranced sight 
Strayed mindful of that heavenly love 
Which knows no end in depth or height. 

And how perfect is this Christian style! how harmonious in its 
proportions! how inexhaustible in its resources and varieties of 
combination, how full of meaning and capability! how signifi¬ 
cant its cruciform plan, its aspiring pinnacles! how pervading 
the religious sentiment, how true the artistic poetry and feeling! 
how satisfying to the eye, how eloquent to the sympathetic 
heart! 

But if in mediaeval times neither Sculpture nor Painting 
attained in England a development equal to that of Architec¬ 
ture, I fear that in Architecture and Monumental Sculpture our 
own age will not bear comparison with the thirteenth century; 
and truly, in the application of painting and colour to our 
churches and palaces, we might advantageously take a lesson 
from the times that bigotry calls “ the dark ages.” In Church 
Architecture we have not yet emerged from the carpenter’s 
Gothic of the time of George III.; and whereas the thirteenth 
century saw the noblest abbey-churches built, the nineteenth 
century sees them still lying in lonely and desolate ruin, as if 
they were no more to us than the Irish round towers—those 
slender, cone-toppcd piles that, upon bleak hill-sides or by a 

D 2 






36 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


gloomy lake, stand.in suck mysterious and ghost-like grandeur, 
surrounded by the ruins of a thousand years. 

The monumental sculpture with which the false taste and 
perverted art of the last three hundred years have encumbered 
our edifices of religion is unworthy even of heathen art, and has 
for the most part nothing Christian in its character. Even in 
the third century, Christian subjects were represented in the 
sculptured forms of Roman art; but our modern monuments are 
generally mere petrifactions of heathenism, unredeemed by the 
grace which classic Sculpture could boast, and destitute of its 
poetry and fitness. Westminster abbey and St. Paul’s cathedral 
are crowded with “ the marble offspring of allegory,” speaking 
a language unknown to the people, and unsuited to the place. 
In St. Paul’s cathedral somebody reckoned up nine Britannias, 
six Fames, fifteen Victories, seventeen Neptunes, and one Mi¬ 
nerva, besides a crowd of river gods of every kind, varied with 
what have been facetiously called “ fricasees of flying angels;” 
winged and chubby boys—those spiritualised cherubim which 
are formed of an infant’s head with a pair of duck’s wings under 
the chin; troopers in jack-boots, and solemn statesmen in copious 
wigs—all undeniably Georgian in their type. Again, what can 
be a more abject perversion of the powers of Sculpture than to 
apply it (as it has been applied in several of the modern monu¬ 
ments in Westminster abbey and St. Paul’s,) to impalpable 
objects, such as clouds and sunbeams? Then, as regards the 
application of fresco and coloured decoration to our edifices, we 
are not less behind the days of the Plantagenets. An unvaried 
coldness of stone surface was unknown in England in the middle 
ages, as it was in the best periods of antiquity. Great works in 
fresco enlivened the halls of kings and the Houses of God; and 
even beneath the northern skies gold and colour glowed in our 
cathedrals. 

But I was speaking of the revival of Art in Europe in the 
thirteenth century. At that epoch, Art attained a wondrous 
unity. The studio of the painter became transformed (as it 
were) into an oratory; and Art—ever embracing a divine 
theme with ardour—brought the noblest, productions of genius 
to the altar. Painting became peculiarly the handmaid of 





POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


37 


Christianity, as Sculpture had been the expression of Greek 
mythology. 

And perhaps the only public patronage which was ever really 
useful to the Arts, or (as Hazlitt has said) worthy of them, was 
that which they received, first in Greece and afterwards in Italy, 
from the religious institutions of the country, when the artist felt 
himself, as it were, a servant at the altar, when his hand gave a 
visible form to angels or apostles, to saints and martyrs, and 
when the enthusiasm of genius was exalted by mingling with 
the flame of national devotion. It was then (to adopt the com¬ 
parison drawn by Tacitus between eloquence and fire) that 
enthusiasm found matter to feed and motion to excite it, and 
brightened as it burned. The case was the same with the 
sculptor, the musician, and the poet, for every kind of inspiration 
then sprang from the same source, and flowed towards the same 
end. The most sublime and ideal conceptions were those which 
Religion inspired : the artist’s imagination was tinged with a 
glory from the sphere it reached, and the light that shone in his 
work had been kindled at the altars of God. In the paintings 

of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries we have 

* 

the handiwork of devout men who thought and worked in the 
silent, solemn shadow of the cloister—with whom all display of 
technical skill, all geographical or chronological accuracy, were 
mere secondary considerations, merged in the sacred subject, to 
them as hallowed as the shrines they were destined to adorn. 
Their absorbing end and scope was the temple of the Eternal— 
not the annual exhibition in Trafalgar Square,—and their works 
reflected their singleness of purpose and their faith. Thus it is 
that the great old masters are fulfilling their mission to nations 
of whom they knew not. Who shall say what has been done 
for man by such devotional pictures as the masterpiece of 
Leonardo da Vinci, and by the other works which great artists 
have left us as so many luminous monuments of their passage 
through the world? The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
were ages of grandeur and earnestness; the people, though illite¬ 
rate, were not ignorant of Religion, or unmoved by religious art. 
The Painting of those ages was a figured symbolism, for art 
aimed at the expression of something beyond mere historical 
events or sensible objects. 










38 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


The art of Painting then only needed the vivifying impulse 
and direction which it received from the fervour of the times, to 
commence a new life and put forth the highest splendour of its 
powers. And truly the flame of enthusiasm had abundant 
material from which to draw the images of Poetry and the forms 
of Art. The remains of antiquity in Italy; the presence, though 
in ruins, of temples, of ancient statues, sarcophagi, altars, and 
relievos naturally aided the revival of art. The student of 
Painting and Sculpture drank day by day at the undefiled wells 
of bygone inspiration, and laid his head by night upon “ an 
empire’s dust.” Such sources of the beautiful could not fail to 
address their subtle language to his spirit, like the rock which 
became harmonious after Apollo’s harp had rested on it, and to 
imbue genius with the spirit of the antique. So, too, the great 
painters of the Umbrian and the Venetian schools drew their 
best inspirations and their earnest love for the beautiful from 
the scenery that surrounded them. Thus, the school of Pietro 
Perugino rose (as an accomplished writer has remarked) amidst 
the wavy hills of his native Umbria, clothed with the bright 
chestnut and pale olive, and crowned by the many-towered village 
or peaceful convent, mirrored in the clear, blue lake of Trasy- 
mene; while the more grand and solemn natural features of the 
Friuli—the sunset gilding the rolling clouds that hang over the 
distant Alps, the deep valleys almost hid in their purple shadows, 
and the boundless expanse of the Adriatic, imparted that feeling 
for rich and glowing colour which distinguish the Venetian 
school. 

The cloister, gloomy and austere as it appears to us in history, 
owned the poetical empire of the gods of Olympus and the charm 
of imaginative creations, and this was not less the case in Eng¬ 
land than on the Continent. Christianity had long banished the 
mythology which the Anglo-Saxons brought from their dark 
Teutonic forests; but the pantheism of Eneas and Achilles did 
not prevent the religious men of the cloister from treasuring the 
genius of Virgil and Homer : they appreciated the sublime 
images of Eschylus and Hesiod, the grandeur of Sophocles, no 
less than the philosophical amplitude of Pliny ; they were 
amused by the sparkling beauties of Aristophanes, the merriment 
of Democritus, the satires of Juvenal, and they warmed with the 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


39 


impassioned eloquence of Cicero. And here I may mention that 
the monks of Durham seem to have had very good taste in classical 
poetic literature, for we find them in possession of the works of 
Virgil, and of some of the poems of Ovid and of Horace, and 
even the Romance Poetry of later times was not banished. 

But I was tracing the comparative progress of the arts in Italy 
in those centuries when their practice exhibited the union of 
artistic beauty and devotional ideas. The glorious age of our 
Edward the Third and William of Wykeham was marked in 
England by some of the noblest works of Ecclesiastical Architec¬ 
ture that any land can boast; and that part of the fourteenth 
century was equally marked in Italy by a perfect union of beauty 
and religious aim in Painting, in metal work, in other branches 
of Sculpture, and in Architecture. But early in the fifteenth 
century Sculpture seems to have advanced beyond Painting in 
Italy. We have an illustration of this in Ghiberti’s celebrated 
bronze doors for the baptistery at Florence—those doors which 
elicited from Michel Angelo the well-known eulogium that they 
were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. His sculptures exhibit 
an attentive study of nature, and a sudden emancipation from 
the formal, traditionary style; and when we look at the grace of 
his forms and groups—(they are made familiar to untravelled 
Englishmen by the copies in the Crystal Palace)—and see that 
for long after his time great painters—Florentines like himself, 
aiming at the same reality, with the same life around them and 
the same antique beside them,— could not give their figures the 
animation, the grace, and action of those in Ghiberti's bronze, 
one might conclude that colour may be a drag on art, and not 
an assistance. 

While Sculpture was advancing, the pictorial art was emerg¬ 
ing from the pedantic formality of the Byzantine school, discard¬ 
ing those types which are the mere spectres of a once living art; 
and, by the imitation of nature and the expression of feeling, 
began from the middle of the fifteenth century a new and fruitful 
life. 

But Painting was emphatically the art of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury. The newly-awakened spirit of Catholicism in the Pon¬ 
tificate of Sextus V. gave a new impulse to the arts and to 


40 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


poetry, as well as to the manners of the Roman court; and the 
study of the antique yielded to the new religious tone, lhat 
was the age, it will he remembered, when Spenser and Sidney 
adorned the court of Queen Elizabeth: and in Italy it had Tasso 
for its poet; the Caracci, Guido, Domenichino, and Guercino— 
emphatically the delineator of exquisite forms—for its painters; 
and Palestrina for its musician—Palestrina, whose genius made 
Music the purest utterance of devotional feeling. But the light 
which shone with so much lustre in the productions of those 
great masters of Christian art, and which had attained such 
splendour in the works of their immortal predecessors—Michel 
Angelo and Raffaelle, Correggio and Titian—expired with Guido; 
and it is remarkable that Gothic Architecture died out in the 
Tudor style about the same time that the devotional school of 
Italian Painting thus expired. In the time when Elizabeth 
reigned and Spenser wrote in England, Spain was in the apogee 
of the fine arts: palatial and ecclesiastical magnificence testified 
to the generous patronage of the crown. Cadiz, it has been 
said, was then a city of ivory, rising fair as Amphitrite from the 
blue sea, or, as the natives delighted to call it, the casket of 
silver; and it presented a unique combination of Saracenic deco¬ 
ration and Gothic art, intermingled with the classical and ara¬ 
besque of the cinque-cento style, for in that age the renaissance 
shone forth in art, gilding all on which it rested. 

It was reserved for the genius of Michel Angelo to recognise 
the demands made upon the artist’s imagination by the epic and 
ideal in art. From his chisel, as from his pencil, grew to life 
those creations which show 7 him to have been one of the most 
imaginative, if not the most graceful, of artists; and his poetry 
evinces his sympathy with grandeur. The influence of his mas¬ 
ter-mind was felt throughout the whole of Europe; and, for at 
least a century after his death, artists chiefly aspired to his 
grandeur of expression; and their migration from Italy into other 
countries greatly modified the aspect of Sculpture in Europe. 

As Italy was first indebted to Greece for its literature and art, 
so the Poetry of Europe in the middle ages was greatly influ¬ 
enced by Oriental ideas. The case was precisely the reverse 
with Eastern Architecture, as we may see in those architectural 








POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


41 


remains oF Chaldaaa that belong to the period when Rome was 
mistress of the world, for there we find the old Asiatic or 
Oriental types influenced by the art of ancient Greece and Rome. 
The Poetry of the middle ages, however, and especially the 
romantic Poetry of Southern Europe, was tinged by Oriental 
hues, as indeed we might have expected when we remember 
how commerce and the crusades brought Europe into contact 
with the East. With Dante, the contemporary and countryman 
of Giotto, Poetry revived in Italy; but, though future votaries of 
the Poetic Muse found splendid images strewn over his pages, 
and meditated in the land of Virgil, no lesser lights appear 
between the great poet of the thirteenth century and Petrarch, 
the contemporary of our Edward the Third. In the middle of 
the fourteenth century, Petrarch (as Campbell has elegantly 
remarked) stood “ like a post-diluvian patriarch, connecting our 
knowledge of the old world with that of the new, and having 
over his head a rainbow of genius, promising that the flood of 
ignorance should never return.” In England at that time the 
appearance of Chaucer was as a premature day of summer in an 
English spring, after which the blossoms called forth by the 
transient sunshine are nipped by returning frosts. Chaucer was 
the greatest spirit that preceded Shakespeare: he arose when 
Poetry was but a name, and when our language was without 
literature, though England was not without learned men; and he 
shone as a transient light and solitary wonder, succeeded by two 
centuries which have reflected no rays of poetic genius to after 
time. It is remarkable that in Italy only Ariosto and Vida 
shone in Poetry during those two hundred years, although with 
the fifteenth century a constellation of genius arose, and Leo¬ 
nardo and Giorgione, Raffaelle and Michel Angelo, Titian and 
Correggio, illustrate the roll of fame in Painting. At length in 
the sixteenth century all the sister arts inspired illustrious 
votaries, and we 

Behold each Muse, in Leo’s golden days, 

Start from her trance, and trim her wither’d bays; 

Rome’s ancient Genius, o’er its ruins spread, 

Shook off the dust, and rear’d his rev'rend head : 

With sweeter notes each rising temple rung, 

A Raffaelle painted, and a Vida sung. 


42 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


In England, in the sixteenth century, the national feeling for 
Art took that form of which language is the expression, and 
was signalised by the richest emanations of Poetry. I need only 
name Spenser— 

-that gentle bard, 

Chosen by the Muses for their page of state,— 

Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven 
With the moon’s beauty and the moon’s soft pace,— 

who peopled forest, flood, and fountain from his still land of 
truth and fancy, delineating his creations with a painter’s accu¬ 
racy of perception in form, and presenting to the mind’s eye 
beings not found on the dusty highways of life, and landscapes 
that seem to breathe a dewy freshness, and to be bright with 
flowers brought down upon his verse from the realms of imagi¬ 
nation. But English Poetry attained a fuller development when 
in that wondrous combination of active and reflective poetry, the 
Shakesperian drama, the Bard of Avon for ever fixed, as in a 
magic mirror, the romantic spirit of the middle ages, then passing 
away from real life; and when Milton, in his sublime theological 
poems, wrote with the grandeur of conception which had marked 
the works of the greatest masters of Painting of the preceding 
century. 

It is remarkable that the chief lights in Poetry should have 
been separated by such long intervals: 

Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appeared, 

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard; 

To carry Nature lengths unknown before— 

To give a Milton birth, asked ages more. 

However, we may think with pride of the poets—likewise our 
countrymen—whose names illustrate the annals of song from the 
time of Dryden to the time of Tennyson, and shew us that the 
poetic muse has never deserted our British Parnassus. 

The native school of Painting and Sculpture which had arisen 
in England, and which was so nobly developed in our Gothic 
ecclesiastical buildings, seems to have been crushed by the Wars 
of the Roses; and more than three centuries passed away before 
its revival Various causes might be alleged for the failure of 



POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


43 


the formative arts to keep pace in England with their progress 
in the Netherlands and in France. There were in the seven¬ 
teenth century native powers sufficient to have maintained an 
original school of native English art, but the dark and joyless 
spirit of Puritanism was inimical to every species of art, and 
retarded its revival. We still wonder how it came to pass that 
in the seventeenth century, as if under the impetuosity of a 
tempest, Art as well as Poetic Literature sustained a prostration 
from which a hundred years did not suffice to recover them. 
Spenser had hardly ceased to speak; the poetry of Shakespeare 
had but lately filled the public ear, and in Milton the poetic 
muse displayed her ancient glory, when, suddenly, the voice of 
song ceased in the land, as the voices of the groves are hushed 
on the approach of the thunder-storm, and a dark interregnum 
of false human conceits began. Never was brightness succeeded, 
by such eclipse, nor illumination followed by such cheerless 
gloom! The Puritans had frightened the muses from their 
dwelling-place, and the Cavaliers imported licentious manners 
and foreign tastes that were equally inimical to native art. So 
that when Poetic Literature sustained this heavy blow, Sculpture 
came in for its share of oppression ; but a native school of 
Portrait Painting gave assurance that the sister art had not 
wholly fled. 

At the end of the eighteenth century, however, art presented 
fair promise in England, when Flaxman breathed “ its old and 
lofty majesty” into Sculpture, and in his designs adopted the 
pure and exquisite forms of Grecian art. Painting was late to 
revive in England, but we soon surpassed our foreign contem¬ 
poraries, and raised a native British school that drew its inspira¬ 
tions from the everlasting sources of ancient art, but asserted a 
native independency and a province of its own. With the 
English mind, true imitation of nature seems to be the principal 
condition of every form of excellence; we combine with realistic 
tendency a fantastic humour, and love the representation of an 
everyday object when it has passed through an artist’s mind. 
Nor was the poetical element of Painting discarded. There are 
many works of modern painters in which a soft transparency of 
light and shade floating over them, suggests a fancy almost like 


44 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


that of Spenser in its cast of poetical creation; and the application 
of the fine arts to manufacture, popularised and domesticated 
them amongst us, and has carried notions of grace and beauty to 
every village in the land. 

The Athenians of old devoted the gains of commerce to the 
cultivation of art—to surrounding the people with forms of 
beauty and grace ; and, although the love of art for its own sake 
which characterised speculative, isolated Greece, is foreign to the 
practical, cosmopolitan tendencies of Englishmen, and hardly to 
he reconciled with their pursuits, the existence of an Athenasum 
in a great town of trade, and the diffusion of a love for art, show 
that Englishmen, while constructing magnificent docks and 
engaging in works that only England can produce, feel aspira¬ 
tions beyond the practical objects of daily life, and are pressing 
with Athenian ardour towards the portals of science. 

And here let me briefly advert to those works, worthy the 
art and the noble thoughts of the artists of former days, which 
are now in progress at Alnwick Castle. Less than a century ago 
our ancient edifices, castellated as well as ecclesiastical, were 
passing through the dark period of Georgian mutilation. The 
works of that day almost ruined the mediaeval features of Alnwick 
Castle; but now, the noble and munificent Duke of Northumber¬ 
land is working in the spirit of the mediaeval times, and is 
gradually restoring the exterior features of the Castle, and sub¬ 
stituting works of architectural beauty for the bastard Gothic 
of the Georgian era ; while within, His Grace, discarding the 
decorations and furniture of feudal times, is decorating his 
ancestral halls with sumptuous carvings of flowers and foliage 
that are as gorgeous in hue as if they had grown under the sunny 
skies of Italy; and, for their better cultivation, is raising up a 
native school of art in the ancient town of Alnwick. And 
although the valiant Hotspur, if he could revisit the Castle 
whose fair coronal of towers here crowns the green eminences of 
the Ain, would, I dare say, be astonished by the luxury of a style 
of interior decoration which was certainly unknown in his day, he 
would see his noble successor engaged on works that evince a 
grandeur of idea and a considerate love for art worthy of its ancient 
patrons, and worthy the ancient splendour of the Percy line. 


POETRY AND THE FINE ARTS. 


45 


But now it is more than time to conclude. The more we 
consider the subject, the more do we see reason to regard the 
Arts as mediators that bear to man the divine message of 
nature: I should rather say, as ambassadors from on high, 
divinely commissioned to sway every mood of the human heart. 
We see in Painting an art which, advancing from the rude 
symbols of the earliest nations, “ companioned all the changes 
of the human state,” and at length advanced to gorgeous plen¬ 
itude as the handmaid of Christianity: we see in Sculpture 
an art which among the most intellectual of nations embodied 
ideal beauty and gave a visible presence to the objects of 
human worship—an art which has raised “ grand and graceful 
time-marks” in every land: we see in Music an art whose 
language has been truly called the purest Sanscrit of the 
feelings—the only gift of Heaven and innocence that seems to 
have taken possession of the human heart before the fall of man, 
and to have ever since aroused its best emotions and remained 
with it as a celestial guide : we see in Architecture an art which, 
advancing from the rude shelter raised by Asiatic tribes, through 
all its gigantic developments in the lands of ancient civilisation, 
and all its graceful transformations in classic Greece and Western 
Europe, at length brought all other arts to enrich its stately 
monuments of piety and skill—those Christian edifices which 
have been well said to raise on high the hope and perfume of the 
soul, as if men had aimed to return 

The gifts by nature given 

In softest incense back to heaven : 

and we see in Poetry an art whose sceptre is universal—an art 
that was cultivated for the highest ends by the ancient people 
to whom graven images were forbidden, and that has afforded in 
all later times the loftiest inspirations to the sister arts, and 
gone hand-in-hand with their cultivation—an art around whose 
throne the kindred arts of Music, Painting, and Sculpture wait 
as the graces of ancient fable round the throne of Venus; but 
whose messengers have travelled with the Light that has lighted 
the Gentiles, and have shone brightest in the service of true 
religion. 


46 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


And finally, in the powers and functions of all the arts, no 
less than in those faculties of the human mind to which they 
bring perpetual tribute, we recognise additional reasons for grati¬ 
tude to the Giver of all good :—God who has shown His powder 
in the stars and the firmament, in the everlasting hills and in the 
perpetual streams, has shown it also (to use the language of a 
reverend divine) in the minds of the most gifted of His creatures. 
Homer and Virgil, Dante and Milton, Michel Angelo and 
Raffaelle, no less than Bacon and Newton, remain as the Danube 
and the Alps remain, prominent, enduring glories of the world, 
and all history shows us that the arts are intimately bound up 
with the enjoyments, the dignity, and the higher destinies of the 
human race. 




LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


[Revised and reprinted from the New Monthly Magazine, Oct. 1856.] 

From the earliest ages trees occur as objects reverenced from 
generation to generation, and with particular trees many memo¬ 
rable events of history are associated. In the most ancient annals 
we find mention of some tree that became a landmark of nations 
long before Ethelbert and his court listened to the preaching of 
St. Augustine beneath a Kentish oak ; and it seems as if the 
human race had in all times loved to connect the memories 
of transitory man with these enduring witnesses, and to hold as 
consecrate their ancient solemn shade. 

The towering oaks of Palestine mark each step of the first 
patriarchal migration.* Under the oak of Moreh, at Shechem, 
and the oak of Mamre, at Hebron, was built the altar and pitched 
the tent of Abraham ;f and each of these aged trees connected 
with the history of Israel became the centre of a long succession 
of traditionary memories and historical recollection :— 

Such tents the patriarchs loved. 

Within the ancient inclosure mentioned by Josephus, of which 
some ruins still remain to the north of Hebron under the name of 
“ Abraham’s House,” stood a gigantic tree, supposed not only to 
have seen the Flood, but to be coeval with the Creation! The 
tree to which this marvellous antiquity was attributed remained 

* Sinai and Palestine. By the Rev. A. P. Stanley. 1856. 

I Yen. Bede, in his Op. Hist. Min. (Book of the Holy Places, chap, ix.), 
mentions Abraham’s Oak as reduced to a stump twice the height of a man, 
inclosed in a church and situated in the northern part of the plain of 
Mamre. 



48 - 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


down to the time of Theodosius, and in the reign of Constantine 
its branches were commonly hung with images and a picture, and 
a fair was held under its shade, at which time Christians, Jews, 
and Arabs alike rendered honour to the leafy patriarch, ihis 
Methuselah of trees was afterwards inclosed within a church, in 
which it was standing in the seventh century, and marvellous 
tales were told of it. Another tree, known as the Oak of Abra¬ 
ham, near Hebron, is described by Dr. Robinson as a magnificent 
tree, with a sound trunk measuring twenty-two feet and a half in 
circumference, the branches having a diameter of nearly ninety 
feet; but he remarks that Abraham’s tree (a terebinth) probably 
stood nearer to Jerusalem, and it had disappeared in the days of 
Jerome. An oak at El Kantarah, near Sidon, measures forty 
feet in circumference—a girth which exceeds that of the Hebron 
oak by more than fifteen feet.* Maundeville relates of a tree 
which he saw near Hebron, that it was green in Abraham’s day, 
and withered up at the time of Our Saviour’s crucifixion. This 
is not the only tree to which popular tradition has ascribed a 
sympathy with the life of Christ, for the oak in the New Forest, 
against which Tyrrel’s arrow glanced (and which was standing a 
hundred years ago), was said to put forth buds every Christmas- 
day that withered before night. There were other sylvan patriarchs 
of fame in the Holy Land, as the Oak of Bethel, the Oaks of the 
Wanderers, &c., which look green in the history of Palestine, like 
the palm-trees of its wells. And we must not omit the sycamore, 
from which Zaccheus saw Our Saviour’s entry into Jerusalem, 
which was standing in the fourth century after Christ, when it 
was seen by St. Jerome. 

Then, besides these long-remembered landmarks, there is the 
cluster of ancient trees that remain in their secluded heights on 
Lebanon, celebrated by the poets of Israel as the Trees of God— 
the tall cedars which He had planted. A Syrian traveller, in 
1696, found one of the largest thirty-seven feet in girth. Their 
extreme antiquity' is proverbial. Their timber was used (and 
probably for the last time) in Constantine’s Church of the Nativity 
at Bethlehem, the roof of which, when last renewed, was repaired 

* It is mentioned by Mr. Beamont of Warrington, in bis Diary of a Visit 
to the East , 1856. 




LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 49 

with British oak, the gift of our fourth Edward. The Greek 
clergy still offer mass under their branches as in a natural temple. 
And so, upon the ridge of Carmel, in the ruins of a stone building 
which might be of any age, among thick bushes of dwarf oak, 
the reputed scene of Elijah’s sacrifice upon the sacred high-altar 
of the Lord, the Druses come—as Vespasian went—to offer 
sacrifice. 

But long before the Druses were a people, woods and groves 
were held in reverence by heathen antiquity for the celebration 
of religious rites. We have all read of the solemn shades 

Where maidens to the Queen of Heaven 

Wove the gay dance round oak or palm. 

Homer mentions a sacrifice offered under a beautiful plane-tree. 
Ulysses, inquiring for his son,* hears that 

In sacred groves celestial rites he pays. 

The oak, which was held sacred by the Greeks, was dedicated to 
Jupiter himself by the Romans, was reverenced by the Britons, 
and (as we learn from Diodorus Siculus f) by the Gauls. Pliny J 
savs, that to the sacred shade of oaks the Druids resorted for their 
solemn ceremonies. Then—to pass from heathen customs to the 
usages of Christian antiquity—we find that to hold a synod under 
the shade of an oak-tree was a custom of which early ecclesiastical 
history furnishes many examples. Thus, the place where Augus¬ 
tine convoked his first synod, and met the ecclesiastics of the 
British Church, was afterwards distinguished by the name of 
“Augustine’s Oak.” It seems to have been near Aust-ferry, 
at the extremity of Gloucestershire, in Bede’s time part of the 
kingdom of the West Saxons. The name of Augustine is, more¬ 
over, connected with more than one oak in England. 

A custom of very distant antiquity was followed by those 
mediaeval princes who received embassies, and—like St. Louis- 
dispensed justice, sitting under a wide-spreading ancient tree. 

* Odyss. xi. 223. t Diod. Sic. b. v. c. 31. 

} Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. c. 44. “Jam per se Roborum eligunt Lucos, 
neque ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt.” 

E 


50 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


And well might the heathen rites of antiquity be performed 
within the awe-inspiring shade of dark and solemn forests; well 
might the Gospel of the Eternal be proclaimed beneath His 
ancient and wide-embracing oaks; well might a Christian sove¬ 
reign hold his court surrounded by such monitory and steadfast 
nobles, and take counsel from the “tongues in trees.” Remem¬ 
bering those who had there preceded him in judgment, he might 
feel that “centuries were looking down” upon him from the 
towering branches, and he might be admonished, by the magni¬ 
tude and stability of these crowned ones of the forest, to contrast 
with them the littleness of man, and with their vigorous duration 
the evanescence of human sway. But we are not going to moralise 
on trees: let us revert to the notices of trees in ancient history. 
And first, there was the plane-tree, famous for its extraordinary 
size and beauty, which grew in Arcadia, and was said to have 
been planted by the husband of Helen, and which Pausanias saw 
when it was supposed to be thirteen hundred years old, being 
then still vigorous. The temple of Apollo in the Peloponnesus 
stood among plane-trees. Pliny mentions the famous plane-tree 
of Lycia, which grew near a fountain by the highway, itself a 
forest, and in the hollow of whose trunk the Roman governor, 
Licinius Mucianus, with eighteen companions, enjoyed a repast. 
Enormous plane-trees are mentioned in the earliest records of 
Greece. It was probably under their shade that Socrates con¬ 
versed of philosophy; and the Academic groves in which the 
mind loves to picture Plato and his disciples were formed of the 
lofty and wide-spreading plane. We learn from Herodotus that 
Xerxes, when he invaded Greece, halted his army under a tree of 
this kind, which delighted him by its spreading shade and colossal 
form; and Elian says that the Persian king spent a whole day 
under it, and commemorated it in a medal which he caused to be 
struck. A tree like a sycamore, equally capable of sheltering an 
army, was seen, in lfi56, by Thevenot on the Turkish island 
called Isola Longa, the branches of which, he says, would cover 
two thousand men! Down to later days magnificent specimens 
of this umbrageous tree have continued to flourish in Greece, 
many of which are now existing. One of the most celebrated of 
these is the gigantic “Plane-tree of Godfrey de Bouillon,” at 



LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


51 


Buyuk-dere on the European side of the Bosphorus—a tree that 
was flourishing when first 


Byzantium’s native sign 
Of Cross on Crescent was unfurled, 

and is conjectured by M. de Candolle to be more than two thou¬ 
sand years old. AAriien measured in 1831, it was found to be 
a hundred and forty feet in circumference at the base, and it has 
been described * as resembling a tower of clustered trunks. Its 
branches are said to be more like a forest than a single tree. Its 
sides are cavernous, and shelter the herdsmen as in a grotto, who 
make their fires in these hollows. It is picturesque and majestic 
in its aspect, as a tree should be over whose masses of foliage 
centuries have glided, and which has shadowed the tents of 
heroes that Tasso sung. AVhether it was Godfrey himself or his 
fellow crusaders who encamped beneath this millennial tree, there 
it stands, ever full of nests and sunbeams, seeing the years depart 
like the leaves that fall at its feet, and the winds of the desert 
scatter the dust of those antique warriors, remaining itself, from 
age to age, only more firm and colossal. 

Another enormous plane, growing upon the banks of the 
Selinus, near Nostizza, is mentioned in Hobhouse’s “ Travels in 
Albania,” and is described as being forty-five feet in circum¬ 
ference at the base, and a hundred feet high, covered with 
luxuriant foliage. In the Turkish Empire these ancient trees 
seem to be held in reverence as they were before the days of the 
Prophet. The Mahomedans retire to pray and meditate under 
them, selecting those beneath whose shade religious men in 
former days are believed to have meditated and prayed. 

But we were speaking of trees mentioned in history; and 
perhaps one of the most remarkable is the tree called Ruminalis,f 
which stood in the place assigned for public elections in Rome. 
Tacitus J informs us that in a.d. 58 this tree, which eight hun- 

* By Monsieur Gautier, in his “ Constantinople of To-Day.” 
f From the word (in old Latin) rumen. Thus, in Pliny, “ Lupa in- 
fantibus prtebens rumen.” 
j Annals, book xiii. sec. 58. 

E 2 



52 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


dred and forty years before bad given shelter to the infancy of 
Romulus and Remus, began to wither in all its branches, and 
seemed threatened with total decay, which was considered 
ominous of future evil, but that it regained its former verdure. 

Pliny, in his memoranda of the Quercus Ilex (evergreen oak), 
mentions trees, growing in his time, of a greater age than Rome 
itself—trees which must have stood at that period for at least 
fourteen hundred years. 

Ovid, it will be remembered, speaks of the “ mighty oak ” 
which,— 

-in aged majesty, 

Towers o’er the subject trees, itself a grove. 

Of trees now remaining, the venerable cypress-tree at Somma, 
in Lombardy, which is a hundred and twenty-one feet in height, 
has a longer historical existence than any other tree of which we 
have read, if it be true that the chronicle at Milan, referred to by 
the Abbe Belize, shews it to have been standing in the time of 
Julius Caesar. The tradition of the place, however, is, that it 
was planted in the year of the birth of Christ, on which account 
it is reverenced by the inhabitants, and was spared by Napoleon 
himself when he laid down the plan of his great road over the 
Simplon. 

We are not aware of any other existing trees to which either 
history or tradition assigns a greater age than twelve hundred 
years, but there are many which are estimated by naturalists 
to be much older, as will be noticed presently. Apropos of 
existing continental trees with historical associations, we may 
mention here the old orange-tree in the Orangery at Versailles, 
known under the three names of Grande Connetable, Francois I., 
and Grande Bourbon, but this royally descended as well as titled 
tree seems quite overshadowed when compared with the vener¬ 
able cypress of Lombardy. However, it is more than four 
hundred years old, and has a curious history,’ which we believe 
is to the following effect: It comes from some pippins of a tree 
of bitter oranges planted at the commencement of the fifteenth 
century by Eleanor of Castile, wife of Charles III., King of 
Navarre. The trees raised were preserved, down to a.d. 1499, 




LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


53 


at Pampeluna, and afterwards passed to different owners as rare 
and precious objects, and at length to the Constable de Bourbon, 
who kept them at his Chateau de Chantelle, in the Bourbonnais, 
until 1522, when, on the confiscation of his property, the orange- 
trees were sent to decorate the palace of Fontainebleau, then 
restored and enlarged by Francois I. In 1684, when Louis XIV. 
had finished Versailles and its magnificent Orangery, he collected 
there all the orange-trees preserved in the royal residences; and 
accordingly the time-honoured orange-trees of Pampeluna, then 
two centuries and a half old, were ultimately removed to Ver¬ 
sailles. The Grande Connetable, the most remarkable of them, 
is still quite vigorous.* 

The fine orange-trees in the public pleasure-gardens at Gotha 
are probably known to many of our readers. Some of these trees 
are said to be three hundred years old. 

The ancient Oak of Guernica is mentioned by Laborde, in his 
account of Biscay, as a most venerable natural monument. Fer¬ 
dinand and Isabella, in the year 1476, after they had heard mass 
in the church of Sta. Maria de la Antigua, repaired to this tree, 
under which they swore to the Biscayans to maintain their 
privileges. 

But in various parts of the world there are trees now standing, 
which, if not dignified by historical associations, were flourishing 
trees almost before European history began. Humboldt considers 
the Dragon tree of Orotava in Teneriffe to be a thousand years 
old. It is said to have been in 1402 as large and hollow as he 
found it late in the eighteenth century. The Olive treef at 
Pessio, regarded as the oldest tree of the kind in Italy, is said by 
Maschettini to have attained the age of seven hundred years; and 
near Nice there is an olive-tree which is considered to be of much 
greater age. Then, too, there is that venerable tree near Saintes, 
in the maritime department of the Lower Charente, which 
Mr. Digby regards as the oldest oak in Europe and the largest, 
and which is supposed to be two thousand years old—an age 

* Ex relatione Galignani’s Correspondent, July, 1855. 

J The Olive still loves its paternal soil in Palestine. It is still found, as 
Dr. E. Clarke remarks, on the spots where it flourished eleven hundred 
years before Christ. 


54 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


greater even than that of the venerable cypress of Somma. Many 
of the oldest trees are yews. Monsieur de Candolle computed the 
average yearly increase of the yew in bulk at about a twelfth of 
an inch; and, applying this rate to the three most famous trees of 
this kind in Britain, estimated their ages at twelve hundred and 
fourteen, twelve hundred and eighty-seven, and two thousand 
eight hundred and eighty years respectively. The first of these 
estimates refers to the oldest of the well-known yew-trees at 
Fountains Abbey, which is one of a group that must have been 
of considerable magnitude seven hundred years ago, when the 
monks who had migrated from their Benedictine House at York 
were sheltered by the thick foliage while building their monas¬ 
tery. These yew-trees were originally seven in number, and all 
are of extraordinary size. The trunk of one of them is nearly 
twenty-seven feet in circumference at three feet from the ground. 
A very exact scrutiny is, however, required in making the 
number and distances of the concentric zones observable in a 
transverse section of old trees a measure of duration, but Monsieur 
de Candolle’s principle has been approved by other botanists; and 
applying it to certain trees in Mexico and Senegal specified in his 
“ Physiologie Vegetale,” their age was estimated at no less than 
four thousand years ! Mr. Digby mentions a cedar on one of the 
mountains of'Calaveras, in California, that must be two thousand 
five hundred years old; but this venerable tree, we are told, is 
surpassed in age by that patriarchal family of gigantic trees which 
stand on a plateau of the Sierra Nevada, about four thousand five 
hundred feet above the level of San Francisco, some of which 
have been pronounced, on the evidence of concentric rings, to be 
contemporary with Moses and Pharaoh. We call these mammoth 
trees a “ family,” for they form a grove of eighty-five trees growing 
in an area of fifty acres. Several of them attain a height exceed¬ 
ing three hundred feet, and the largest in the grove is a hundred 
and seven feet in circumference. One of them was recently felled, 
and the stump, which is twenty-five feet in diameter, having been 
made smooth as a floor, visitors have dined and danced on this 
extraordinary table. Its age is considered to be not less than 
three thousand years. The specimen of the Wellingtonia gigantea , 
recently set up in the Crystal Palace, with the bark taken from 


LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


55 


one of these gigantic “ Sons of the Snow,” affords some idea of 
their symmetry and grandeur.* 

England cannot boast such patriarchal trees as these; but there 
are some ancient monarchs of the wood, especially among our 
majestic oaks, that saw not only mail-clad Normans but painted 
Britons—trees that were giants on the earth in the days of Alfred 
and Athelstan, and are giants still. Although Druidical rites are 
no longer celebrated in the kindred gloom of these old oaks, they 
stand as landmarks of history and human memories, like the grey 
church-towers of England. And our hereditary trees, standing 
fenced round by parks and cultivated grounds, of which they are 
the celebrities and the pride, seem, like most of their noble 
owners, to blend antique stability with modern grace; and, full 
of a patrician dignity, the very types of steadfastness and dura¬ 
tion, loving society, yet secluded from a crowd, they form the 
sylvan aristocracy of the land, and a chief glory of Nature. 

From the forest of royal Windsor (said to have been formerly 
a hundred and twenty miles in circumference), to the remote 
remains of the ancient forest of Caledonia, most of the old wood¬ 
lands of Britain can boast stately aged trees, conspicuous among 
which the Oak still grows in all its native magnificence of form 
and size, attaining in many instances an age supposed to be not 
less than a thousand years: 

* Among trees remarkable for gigantic size we should not omit the Larch 
that stood near Matsch in the Yintschgan, in one of the Styrian forests, 
known as the King of the Larches, the trunk of which could hardly be 
spanned by seven men with outstretched arms. But the Old World has no 
trees so gigantic as the New World can boast. The Eucalyptus or Gum 
tree, near the base of Mount Wellington, in Tasmania, almost rivals the 
mammoth trees of California, in regard to size, inasmuch as its height is 
stated to be 250 feet and its diameter thirty. Some interesting particulars 
descriptive of the Californian trees were published in the Gardener's 
Chronicle , in 1856, by Mr. Thomas Banister, of the Inner Temple, who 
visited the mammoth grove. Whimsical names have been given to some of 
them, Ex. gr ., the “ Father,” the “ Mother,” the “ Husband and Wife,’’ 
the “Three Sisters,” the “Family Group,” the “Old Bachelor,” and 
the “ Old Maid ” (forlorn looking trees of course), the “ Hermit,” the 
“ Twins,” &c. Some magnificent Baobab trees (Adansonia digitata) or 
Mowanas grow on the banks of Lake Ngami in Southern Africa. One of 
them is 76 feet in girth. 


56 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


The monarch oak, the patriarch of trees, 

Shoots rising up and spreads by slow degrees; 

Three centuries he grows, and three he stays 
Supreme in state ; and in three more decays. 

The history of the oak, whether natural or traditional, is (as 
Professor Burnett justly remarks) replete with interest; and the 
reverence in which the tree was held, the oracles sought from it 
of old by the Druidic priesthood, as well as the superstitions 
connected with it in other ages and various countries, all tend to 
combine the annals of the oak with the history ol the human 
race. Of the antiquity of the oak in the British islands, and 
the enormous size which our indigenous oaks attained, we have 
evidence in buried remains of the ancient forests which over¬ 
spread England in the Anglo-Saxon days. Several of these 
pre-historic oaks have been found in different places. Beneath 
Hatfield Chase (for example) the solid trunk of an oak was found 
which measured thirty-six feet in girth, and was computed to 
have been originally more than a hundred feet in height. 
Similar but less gigantic trunks have been found on the banks 
of northern rivers of England, and, in one or two instances, 
amongst the remains of those forests which seem to have been 
overwhelmed in some irruption of the sea, and are now below 
the general level of the coast. 

Other oaks, that were probably contemporaries of the Ottadini 
and the Brigantes, were standing north of Humber until compa¬ 
ratively recent times, when, being wholly decayed, they were cut 
down. Notices of many such trees may also be found in the 
histories of midland and western counties. Dr. Plot mentions 
one at Rycote, in Oxfordshire, under the boughs of which four 
thousand men might have stood ; but this is surely an impossible 
number. The trunk of the great oak at Norbury measured forty- 
five feet in girth; the Boddington oak was even larger; and the 
great hollow tree, known as “Damory’s Oak,” in Dorsetshire, cut 
down in 1775, was sixty-eiglit feet in circumference. The 
Golynos oak, which stood near Newport, in Monmouthshire, and 

the Fairlop oak—long a venerable celebrity of its native forest_ 

have disappeared more recently. 

But we can boast some millennial and equally gigantic trees 





LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


57 


still standing. The following oaks seem the most remarkable for 
age, or magnitude, or associations: first, there is the magnificent 
tree, forty-seven feet in circumference at the ground, pre-eminent 
among the majestic oaks of Salcey Forest, in Northamptonshire, 
which is supposed to have seen fifteen hundred summers; then 
there is the celebrated Green Dale oak at Welbeck, pointed out 
as the tree through the arched cavity of which a coach and six 
was driven; and in Wiltshire the “King Oak,” in Savernake 
Foresf—a tree which carries back the imagination not only to 
the days when Norman hunters came to rest under its spreading 
branches, but to the earlier times when, in this sylvan temple, 
with massive trunks for its pillars, and solemn shade for its 
canopy, the venerable tree looked down on heathen rites. 
Another magnificent tree now standing, called the “ King Oak,” 
is mentioned by that name, as a boundary mark, in a grant by 
Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, to the monks of Waverley, 
and is probably, therefore, at least nine hundred, years old. The 
Flitton oak, in Devonshire, is supposed to have been a young 
tree in the time of King Alfred. Like the Green Dale oak, it is 
thirty-three feet in circumference at the base. And the Fredville 
oak, a tree as old, was majestic in appearance fifty years ago. 

The “brave old oak” of Marton, a little village near Congleton, 
is described as having a circumference of forty-seven feet at a 
yard from the ground, but decay has long been reducing this 
mighty relic of former ages. In the same county of Cheshire 
there was until lately a tree scarcely inferior in size, and it is 
said its existence could be traced back for eight hundred years. 

But in magnitude, these fathers of the forest are surpassed by 
the oak of the ancient church of Cowthorpe, near Wetherby— 
a tree which has been called the glory of England and the pride 
of Yorkshire,—the dimensions of which are set down at forty- 
eight feet in circumference at the ground,* and eighty-five feet 
in height. The Cowthorpe Oak is stated in Loudon’s Gardener’s 
Magazine to be undoubtedly the largest tree at present in the 
kingdom. Its girth at a yard high is forty-five feet. This tree also 

* In Hunter’s Evelyn’s Sylva , in 1776, the girth at the ground is stated 
to be seventy-eight feet; but this measurement probably included some 
buttress-like projections that rise from the roots against the trunk. 


58 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


is supposed to have not only flourished during the Heptarchy, 
but to be sixteen hundred years old. The trunk has been hollow 
for generations—a noble and imposing ruin,—and a few years 
since sixty men stood inside it. One branch extended ninety 
feet, and another eighty feet, but these have fallen: the greatest 
living branch extends about fifty feet. Ihe Hempstead Oak, in 
Essex, and the Merton Oak, in Norfolk, are still larger trees. 
The woodland haunts, so much loved by the poet Cowper, on the 
Marquis of Northampton’s estate, abound with magnificent speci¬ 
mens of forest trees. “ Cowper’s Oak ”—one of these Northamp¬ 
tonshire trees—is supposed to have been planted in the reign of 
William the Conqueror. Two others (figured by Strutt) called 
Gog and Magog, measure thirty feet in girth at three feet from 
the ground. One of the largest oaks in England stands close by 
the old stables in Hampton Court Park. At five feet high it 
measures thirty-six feet round. Among the ancient and noble 
trees for which Windsor Great Park is famous—trees that were 
contemporaries of our early sovereigns, and have survived their 
companions of the forest,—are two magnificent oaks near Cran- 
bourn Lodge, which are of the same girth as the Hampton Court 
oak. “ William the Conqueror’s Oak,” as it is called, in Windsor 
Great Park, measures thirty-eight feet in girth at four feet from 
the ground, and is probably from a thousand to twelve hundred 
years old. Another of the old trees which render Windsor Park 
so impressive of antiquity, and which it is pleasant to look upon 
as associated with the pranks of the Merry Wives, is the oak 
which Mr. Jesse maintains* to be the real “ Herne’s Oak”—the 
tree of which 

An old tale goes, that Herne the hunter, 

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest, 

Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, 

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns. 

The tree is now dead, and stretches forth its spectral arms like 
those of a giant. From its aspect, we need not wonder if 

* It is commonly said that Herne’s Oak was cut down by order of 
George III.; but Mr. Jesse maintains that the oak cut down was a different 
tree. 


LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


59 


There want not many that do fear 
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak. 

The Winfarthing oak and the Bentley oak are likewise remark¬ 
able trees, for they are pronounced to have been seven hundred 
years old at the Conquest. The Bull oak in Wedgnock Park, 
and the Plester oak at Colborne, may also he mentioned as trees 
at least as old as the eleventh century. Some very large trees of 
the Quercus robur are growing on the vallum of the old British 
encampment in Ugbrooke Park, Chudleigh, which seem to have 
sprung up there not long after it had ceased to be the outwork 
of the camp, the old ivy encircling some of them having a cir¬ 
cumference of more than three feet in its stalk. Many oaks that 
are some centuries old are in Ugbrooke Park.* Many British 
oaks, distinguished for their associations rather than their great 
age or magnitude, might be mentioned. The following are 
among the most remarkable that occur to us. 

The old oak at the edge of the park at Clipston (on the verge 
of Sherwood Forest), where the Anglo-Norman kings had a 
palace, which is called the “ Parliament Oak,” in memory of the 
parliament held there by Edward I. in a.d. 1290. 

The large tree called the “Wallace Oak,” at Ellerslie, in Ren¬ 
frewshire, the place of his birth, in the foliage of which the 
formidable Scotch chief and many of his followers are said to 
have hid themselves from the English. The branches are said 
to have once covered a Scotch acre of ground. But relic-hunters 
have made this tree pay such large tribute to its renown, that it 
had become woefully diminished when drawn by Strutt. It will 
be remarked that Charles IP’s famous oak fell by a similar fate. 
It was a spreading tree, and was rendered more picturesque by 
its boughs being covered with ivy. 

At Jedburgh, too, there are ancient wide-spreading oaks, 
known as the “King of the Woods” and the “ Capon-Tree,” 
which are regarded as remains of the ancient forest of Jed. 
Tradition points out the last-mentioned tree as the trysting-place 
in the days of Border warfare. 

* See a Communication by Mr. W. Collyns, of Chudleigh, in Notes and 
Queries , vol. ii. sec. series, p. 434. 


60 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


One of the noble oaks that surrounded Donington Castle, in 
Berkshire, and that still rears its head above the ruined walls, is 
associated by tradition with gentler memories, it being ascribed 
to Chaucer. Adjacent to it is a larger tree, called the “ King 
Oak,” which rises fifty feet before branches spring from the 
trunk. 

A noble tree near the forest of Whittlebury, still known in the 
local traditions of Northamptonshire as “ The Queen’s Oak,” 
derived that name from having been the scene of more than one 
interview between the fair widow Elizabeth Woodville and the 
enamoured young monarch, Edward IY. Under the shelter of 
its branches, she first addressed him, holding her fatherless boys 
by the hands. “ The Queen’s Oak,” which stands in the direct 
track of communication between Grafton Castle (her mother’s 
dowry-estate) and Whittlebury forest, is now hollow, and of very 
aged aspect, but remains a monument with which, as Miss 
Strickland remarks, one of the most romantic scenes in English 
history is associated. 

Then there is the “ Abbot’s Oak,’ in front of Woburn Abbey 
—a nursling of the monks,—upon which tree the last abbot 
is said to have been hung, according to the custom of Henry 
yin. in the case of those superiors of religious-houses who, 
with a noble constancy, denied his ecclesiastical assumptions, 
and resisted his plundering myrmidons. 

We must not forget the Shelton oak, near “proud Salopia’s 
towers,” from the lofty branches of which Owen Glendower is 
said to have reconnoitred the forces of the king and the gallant 
Hotspur before the battle of Shrewsbury (21st of June, 1403J; 
or the oak planted on the classic ground of Penshurst at the 
birth of Sir Philip Sidney, to be a mark of the great event 
“where all the Muses met;” or the oak in the park formerly 
belonging to Lord Hunsdon, from which Queen Elizabeth is said 
to have shot a buck. 

The “ Chapel Oak,” of Altonville ; the “ Great Oak,” in 
Holt forest (which in Evelyn’s “ Sylva ” is said to measure 
thirty-four feet in girth at five feet high); the “ Prison Oak” of 
Kidlington; the “ Spread Oak ” of Worksop ; the Tockwith oak 
(which stands within a mile of the Cowthorpe oak); and the 


LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


61 


Avington “Gospel Oak” are celebrated trees. The “ Riven 
Oak ” in Thorndon Park, Essex, bore that name in the time of 
Henry VIII., and was then a noted tree; and there is a very old 
oak, twenty-seven feet in circumference, in the grounds of Corby 
Castle, Mr. Philip Howard’s beautiful seat in Cumberland. 

We might refer to many other remarkable oaks, but the trees 
we have mentioned are, we believe, the most ancient and inte¬ 
resting of their kind among the leafy glories of sylvan England. 

‘ May all the dryads guard them ! 

In point of antiquity, however, even the Oak does not surpass 
the sombre, “ solitary Yew,” which undoubtedly attains an 
immense age. We have already mentioned the venerable and 
gigantic yew-trees of Fountains Abbey, and there are many 
remarkable trees of the same kind in Britain. One of the most 
remarkable is the Ankerwyke yew, near Staines, which is 
believed to have flourished in the days when St. Augustine came 
to deliver Saxon England from heathen darkness, and to have 
become the silent witness of those conferences of the barons 
which resulted in the grant of the great charter of civil liberties 
in its vicinity at Runnymede. This tree, some centuries after¬ 
wards, acquired more tender associations, Henry VIII. being 
said to have met Anne Boleyn beneath its ominous shade. The 
girth of this tree at eight feet from the ground is set down at 
thirty-two feet, and the whole circle of its branches at two 
hundred. But a yew-tree at Perone, in Picardy, is mentioned 
in history as early as the year 684; and the immense yew in the 
churchyard at Fortingale (which is situated at the entrance of 
Glen Lyon, in Perthshire, in a wild, romantic district in the 
heart of the Grampians,) seems a veritable relic of Roman Cale¬ 
donia. Indeed, Hr. Neill, who visited it in 1833, remarks that 
in all probability it was a flourishing-tree at the commencement 
of the Christian era. Pennant gives its measurement as fifty-six 
feet in girth, and in his time its trunk stood like a great archway. 
According to M. De Candolle’s computation, the Fortingale yew 
is two thousand five hundred years old. The Dry burgh yew, 
the branches of which extend fifty feet, is remarkable for size 
rather than antiquity, it having been planted, as is supposed, 
when the abbey was founded, in a.d. 1136. One of the largest 


62 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


yew-trees in England is at Hampton Court; and a very ancient 
yew stands by Iffley church, near Oxford, the date of which is 
believed to be prior to the Norman conquest. Its trunk is now 
nearly reduced to a shell, but its head is still darkly green. In 
the churchyard of Dibdin, in the New Forest, a yew-tree, 
measuring thirty feet in girth at the ground, is mentioned by 
Sir T. D. Lauder, who says that in the interior of the enormous 
yew in the churchyard of Tisbury, Dorset, seventeen persons 
assembled to breakfast. The hollow trunk is thirty-seven feet in 
circumference, and it is entered by a rustic gate. The Har- 
lington yew (between Brentford and Hounslow) is stated to be 
fifty-eight feet high, as many in diameter of its branches, and 
twenty-seven in the circumference of its trunk; and at Darley- 
in-the-Dale is one still larger, and its age was estimated by 
Mr. Bowman, F.L.S. at two thousand years.* The beautiful 
and stately yew that grows in the churchyard of Gresford, near 
Wrexham, has a circumference of twenty-nine feet a little below 
the divarication of its branches. According to M. De Candolle’s 
computation, this tree, which has a mean diameter of twelve 
hundred and twenty-four lines, is the same number of years in 
age. A yew-tree grew at Forthampton, in Gloucestershire, 
which was twenty-seven feet in girth, and one thousand three 
hundred and sixty years old, according to M. De Candolle’s 
computation. In some English parishes, and in most of the 
parishes of Wales—in which country there are yews of great 
antiquity and. huge dimensions—the yew that stands in the 
churchyard may be taken to be coeval with the first planting of 
the parish church. Many English churchyards besides those 
above named can boast extremely ancient yew-trees; but there 
are few that can present anything like the “ forest of sepulchral 
gloom ” that must have shaded the cemetery of the abbey of 
Stratfleur, in Cardiganshire, when (as Leland says) it had a 
group of thirty-nine great yew-trees. As a sepulchral emblem it 
seems to have come to Europe from Egypt through Greece, and 
its durability and unchanging foliage well adapt it for such 
situations. Wordsworth has celebrated that yew— 


* Proc. of British Association, 1836 . 







LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


63 


The pride of Lorton vale, 

Which to this day stands single in the midst 
Of its own darkness as it stood of yore : 

and the “Four Brothers” of Seathwaite, in Borrowdale—a 
clump of yew-trees, which in their dark hue resemble at a 
distance a mass of cypress—the 

-fraternal four of Borrowdale, 

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove. 

The largest of the four is a noble tree and shows no mark of 
decay. It is about twenty-five feet in girth at four feet from the 
ground. In the same dale there was until lately a tree of vast 
size that was regarded as antediluvian. Forty years ago its dark 
cavernous trunk lay prostrate.* 

But in point of size as well as antiquity the great chestnut at 
Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, seems to rival, if not to surpass, 
any existing oak or yew-tree in Great Britain. This is the tree 
under which King John held a parliament, and it has been 
deemed the oldest and the largest tree in this country. As it 
was referred to as a boundary mark of the manor in the reign of 
Stephen, and was famous in King John’s time for its magnitude, 
it was probably a tree in the time of Egbert, and it may even be 
much older than a thousand years. The circumference of its 
trunk is no less than fifty feet at five feet from the ground. This 
magnitude, however, is greatly surpassed by that of the famous 
tree on Mount Etna, the “ Castagno de Cento Cavalli,” which is 
probably the largest chestnut in the world, and the trunk of which 
is described by Brydone as resembling five large trees growing 
together, and having a hollow cavity more than sixty feet in 
diameter. Apropos of chestnut-trees, we may remark that the 
avenues in Bushy Park are perhaps the finest in Europe, but of 
course none of the trees have any pretension to the size or anti¬ 
quity of the gigantic old trees just mentioned. There are nine 
avenues in all, of which the centre one, formed by two rows of 
horse-chestnuts, is the widest, and when they are in full blossom, 
nothing can surpass the beauty of this 

-living gallery of aged trees, 

lighted up by those graceful “ chandeliers of the forest.” A 
* Dr. Davy’s Angler in the Lake District , 1857. 




64 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


noble tree, a horse-chestnut, is conspicuous in the Wilderness 
at Hampton; and the chestnut-tree at Cobharn Hall measures 
thirty-five feet in circumference at the ground. At Burghley, the 
lofty and graceful horse-chestnut is not only a fine specimen of 
the size which this tree attains, but combines with the antique 
turrets to recal the Burghleys and Cecills of former days. And 
the Spanish chestnuts in Beech worth Park, near Dorking, are 
thought to be coeval with the first Beechworth Castle, founded 
in 1377. 

There are in England some very ancient trees of another kind, 
namely, the Thorn, which, if less stately and ornamental, are, in 
some instances, hardly less remarkable for age than the mag¬ 
nificent trees we have mentioned. “ Hethel Old Thorn,” which 
stands on the property of Mr. Hudson Gurney, has been described 
as one of our vegetable patriarchs, and a still living witness of, 
perhaps, Roman Conquest and Druidical rites. It is mentioned 
as the “Old Thorn” in a deed dated early in the thirteenth 
century, and is indicated as the place for the peasantry to assemble 
on an insurrection in the reign of John. The branches spread 
over thirty yards, forming one thick, grotesque mass, curiously 
interwoven. The trunk is a mere shell and every branch is 
hollow, but the bark is hard and heavy as iron.* Then the 
“ Thom of Ransom,” near Hesketh, in Inglewood Forest, is a 
noted tree. On the stone table below it the forest dues are paid 
to the “bow-bearer” of Inglewood Forest, now the Duke of 
Devonshire. 

And now let the shadow of a few noble Elms be thrown upon 
our page. In France the elm seems to have been associated from 
ancient times with the seignorial chateau, in like manner as the 
British oak has been associated with our historic edifices. It was 
under a great tree planted before the door of the seignorial 
manor-house that village judges in France formerly held their 
assizes. They called these assemblies door-debates (plaids de la 
porte); and as the tree under which these pleadings were held 
was nearly always an elm, the form of threat to bring a person to 
justice was “Meet me under the elm!” (Attendez-moi sous 
forme.) Dances and village festivals were also held under the 

* See McGregor’s Eastern Arboretum, 1841. 


LEAVES FROM OLD TREES. 


65 


old seignorial elm, as in merry England round the maypole ; 
and other suits were urged beneath its shade besides those of 
“ stubborn law,” for lovers made it a place of assignation; and 
the expression is still used—but ironically—“ Wait for me under 
the elm ! ” These words are cruelly tantalising from the lips of 
a fair inamorata if they mean “ You may wait, for I shall not 
be there.” The custom is alluded to in Hautcroche’s “Amant 
qui trompe,” where this line occurs :—“ Et du reste, bonsoir ; 
attendez-moi sous l’orme.” In the middle ages, before the inven¬ 
tion of printing, when there were poetical societies, the members 
of which read their compositions to their colleagues, one of these 
associations took its name from its custom of meeting under an elm. 

We do not know of any English elms thus associated with 
poetry and song, but there are many localities in the south of 
England to which the elm seems to have given its name from the 
time even of the Anglo-Saxons, although there are not many 
very old elm-trees in England. Perhaps there is not a more 
ancient elm than the tree which companions the mansion-house of 
Chequers, at Ellesborough, in Buckinghamshire, and which, 
according to the family tradition, was planted in the reign of 
Stephen. The Wych elm at Field, in Staffordshire, described by 
Dr. Plot to measure twenty-five feet in girth, must likewise have 
been in his time an ancient tree; and the similar tree at Tutbury 
is a relic of the castle, and of “ time-honoured Lancaster,” as well 
as of the days when the wood of this kind of tree was esteemed 
for the long-bow in England. Then, too, there is the Chipstead 
elm, under which the annual fair was held from the time of our 
fifth Henry, when the road from Rye to London passed close by it. 
There is on Richmond-green the trunk of an ancient tree called 
the “ Queen’s Elm,” from having (it is said) been a favourite of 
Queen Elizabeth; and in the park of Hampton Court there are 
two elm-trees known by the name of the “ Giants,” which must 
have been formerly of enormous size, for the trunk of one of them 
is twenty-eight feet in girth; and another elm adjacent, known 
as “ King Charles’s Swing,” measures thirty-eight feet in circum¬ 
ference at eight feet from the ground. In our days, when among 
“ smoke, and crowds, and cities,” we endeavour where we can to 
bring around us “the ever-renewing freshness, the grace and 

F 


66 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


poetry of trees,” we bring tbe elm to adorn our public walks a 
location for wbicli its patient endurance of smoky atmosplieie 
well fits it. Some of tlie finest public walks in England are thus 
adorned: witness the noble rows in Christ Church Meadow at 
Oxford; St. John’s, Cambridge; Gray’s Inn-gardens (planted by 
Lord Chancellor Bacon); and St. James’s Park. A propos of 
the latter, Mr. Jesse mentions that one of the elms standing near 
the entrance into Spring-gardens was planted by the Duke of 
Gloucester, brother of Charles I., who is said to have mentioned 
the circumstance, and pointed out the tree when passing it for the 
last time on his way to the fatal Whitehall. In the midland 
and southern parks of England there are some noble ancient 
avenues of lofty elms, beneath which it is delightful to pace 
the mossy turf, to hear the sound that sweeps through their 
branches as they bend to the wind, and see the shadowing 
foliage 

-weaving its verdant tracery overhead, 

With the light melting through the high arcades 
As through a pillared cloister’s. 

Everybody knows the avenues of limes at Hampton Court. 
Speaking of the lime-tree, we may mention the tradition that 
the first trees of this kind that were planted in England were 
those at Dartford, the planting of which is attributed to the 
Sir John Spilman who, before 1590, set up there the first paper- 
mill in this country. It was in the time of Louis XIV. that the 
approaches to residences of French and English nobles began to 
be bordered with lime-trees, and there are many noble survivors 
in this country of the trees then planted. 

The Beech, likewise, forms many of the mile-long avenues of 
our sylvan cathedrals, and we might mention several green 
arcades of amazing height and grandeur, besides some individual 
trees of this kind, that are of noble proportions, and as old as the 
days of the Tudors. One of the largest that we remember is the 
beech-tree near Sawyer’s Lodge, in Windsor Great Park, which 
at the height’of a man has a circumference of thirty-six feet. 

The oldest known specimen in Britain of the oriental Plane is 
that at Lee Court, in Kent, which was a fine tree when seen by 
Evelyn, in 1683. It is figured in Strutt’s Sylva Britannica. 



LEAVES FliOM OLD TREES. 


67 


I he Walnut, probably a native of Persia, is thought to have 
been introduced in Europe by the Greeks. It found its way 
early to Rome—Horace and Virgil allude to it,—and very pro¬ 
bably this tree was brought to England by the Romans. 

We have not yet mentioned the Ash—a tree which, though 
yielding in vastness and circumference of trunk to many of our 
ancient oaks, frequently towers in height above the herculean 
monarch of the woods. In the Arboretum Britannicum many 
ash-trees are mentioned varying from twenty to thirty feet in 
circumference of trunk, and attaining from seventy to even a 
hundred feet in height. The Ash is not so slow in growth as 
the oak. The great ash at Carnock, planted in 1596, is thirty- 
one feet in circumference, and ninety in height. The great ash 
at Woburn is also remarkable, but not so large in its dimensions. 

But here we must stop, or the dimensions of our paper will 
grow beyond all customary bounds. We have spoken of the 
sylvan celebrities that adorn our parks and ancient woods rather 
than of trees generally ; of the historical interest of particular 
trees rather than of the poetry and charm that belongs to these 
ever-magnificent objects of God’s fair creation. Otherwise we 
might have said much of their “ infinite variety ” of character 
and aspect, contrasting the grand, massy foliage of the sycamore 
with the silvery leaf and plumose lightness of the willow; the 
dark, wide-spreading, horizontal branches of the tall cedar, of 
which such magnificent specimens grace the pleasure-grounds of 
many English noblemen in the southern counties, with the 
tremulous verdure of “ the light, quivering aspen the dark, 
tufted foliage of the stately chestnut with the light, picturesque, 
pendant branches of the ash; the grand, living pyramid of the 
lime with the lightsome, weeping verdure of the birch-tree— 
“ lady of the woods;” the ancient, solitary gloom of the yew 
w r ith the slender and aspiring poplar or the towering pine. 
What natural objects can be more magnificent in themselves, or 
give a greater charm to landscape scenery, than the English 
elm, with its picturesque and noble outline; the walnut, with 
its imposing form and lofty stature; the Wych elm, with its 
massive yet graceful luxuriance ; the Oriental plane, with its 
elegant form, majestic layers of foliage, and picturesque depth ol 


68 


LECTUHES AND ESSAYS. 


light and shade; the noble, expansive beech—the Adonis, as it 
has been called, of our Sylva; or, finally, the majestic oak, so 
stately in growth, so massive and strong in its branches, so rich 
in its clustering foliage, so pre-eminent in dignity and duration 
amongst the sylvan lords, and which, if the ash is the Venus of 
the woods, may well be called the Hercules of the forest? Long 
may our woodlands flourish, and may their shadows never be 
less! 




THE IMS OF COURT. 


[“Illustrated London News,” 4 April, 1857.] 

Within a circle of a few hundred yards from Temple-bar, 
islanded by the thronged highways of traffic, and adjoining, yet 
apart from, the noisy thoroughfares of commerce, the old paved 
courts and dark quadrangles of tall houses that form the quiet 
colonies of the lawyers stand in their privileged seclusion— 
curious portions of old London that seem (in the words of our 
friend, Mr. Charles Dickens) to have been “ left behind in the 
march of Time.” You need only cross the threshold of their 
guarded ways to exchange the tumult of crowded, garish 
thoroughfares for quiet courts where “ shadows and silence 
dwell;” to stand amidst quaint-looking groups of high, red-tiled 
houses old enough to have sheltered a Bacon and a Plowden, a 
Selden and a Coke; and to find things of the Past lingering as if 
spell-bound amongst the buildings of a by-gone age. But all is 
not sombre and dingy that we find within the quiet Inns of 
Court: for there tall elms, inhabited by birds (and those not 
rooks only), spread their refreshing verdure; and you may stand 
on grass-plots under whispering trees, while you 

-hear the vast sound 

From the streets of the city that compass them round. 

A high legal authority recently described the learned civilians 
in Doctors’ Commons as moving in a kind of ancient twilight 
rather than the clear light of day, and certainly the penetralia ol 
some of the less-favoured Inns of Court can hardly be said to 
possess any greater enjoyment of natural daylight; while, to the 




70 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

uninitiated, their constitution and purpose appear wrapped in a 
mystery darker than the aspect of their ominous labyrinths. 
They are looked upon as provinces sacred to benchers and 
butlers, barristers and barbers, law-students and laundresses, 
pleaders and porters, solicitors and stationers, conveyancers and 
cooks—the heterogeneous constituents of the mythic University 
of the Law. And if these inns present external features so 
unlike the rest of London, their internal privileges and polity 
seem equally anomalous and antiquated. An Inn of Court is 
supposed to be designed for a college of legal education; and its 
hall and chapel give collegiate and religious associations to the 
spot; but the public see in it only a stronghold of law and good 
living—an aggregation of unsavoury chambers round a savoury 
symposium. An Inn of Court is understood to be well endowed 
from olden time for promoting the study of the law; but, until 
lately, one looked in vain for a visible system of education. Its 
fine hall is, indeed, collegiate in character and capacity—but the 
course was found to be gastronomic rather than academic; and, 
as to the government of this imperium in imperio , less has been 
known of it than of the most distant colony of the crown. It 
was therefore not surprising that, when Parliament recently 
addressed Her Majesty for inquiry into the application of their 
revenues, and the fulfilment of their assumed charge of legal 
education, the popular voice arraigned the benchers to answer 
for trusts broken and resources misapplied, for having sent forth 
their students graduated but untaught, and for having allowed 
their halls to become mere refectories, where 

Bar-aspirants ate their tedious way. 

All persons acquainted with the character of the eminent men 
chosen to govern their respective Inns of Court felt that such 
accusations, however well founded, must be occasioned by the 
faults of a system, and were not justly attributable to any 
personal deficiencies in the benchers. Mr. Phillimore, the 
Queen’s Counsel, does them no more than justice when he 
ascribes to them “ a high feeling of honour, and a strong desire 
to do right. They constitute (to use the language of that learned 
gentleman) an excellent aristocracy ; they have no conceivable 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


71 


motive to go wrong; their honour and social status are involved 
in the honour of the profession which they watch over; they 
have no interest except for the general good; they are very 
considerate—almost too indulgent ; men of highly-exercised 
minds, and yet not overlooking offences which the interests of 
society require them to notice.” 

A strong impression, nevertheless, prevailing in the public 
mind, that all sorts of abuses had crept into the administration of 
the Inns of Court, it was quite in accordance with the spirit of 
the age that the governing functionaries of this legal oligarchia 
should he called upon to shew what revenues they possess 
properly applicable to the study of law and jurisprudence, and 
what arrangements they have made for its promotion. Her 
Majesty accordingly appointed Commissioners on the 5th May, 
1854, to inquire into those arrangements and revenues, and “ the 
means most likely to secure a sound and systematic education for 
students, and to provide satisfactory tests of fitness for admission 
to the bar.” The “Blue-book” now before us* contains the 
results of that inquiry, and their importance and interest are by 
no means confined to that portion of the community which is 
engaged in the study and practice of the law. Every Englishman 
has an interest in the enlightened training and due education of 
the advocate: to that education must be attributed the influence 
which lawyers exert; and upon its high character must depend 
the titles of the legal profession to its eminence in the estimation 
of mankind. For these reasons we propose, although the pro¬ 
fessional studies of the lawyers are of course foreign to our 
critical province, to glance at the history of the Inns of Court, 
and at the recommendations which the Commissioners offer with 
the view of improving the education of candidates for the Bar. 

And—looking first at the present before we revert to the 
past—it is startling to learn that the income of the Inns of Court, 
collectively, amounts to nearly 80,000/L a-year (which sum is 
derived from rental of such chambers as are not appropriated by 

* “ Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Arrange¬ 
ments in the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery for promoting the Study 
of the Law and Jurisprudence.” Presented to Parliament by command of 
Her Majesty, 1855. 


72 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


benchers, from fines, funded property, and annual payments by 
members), but that the benchers have nevertheless been unable 
to apply until recently any part—and at the present time can 
apply only a few hundreds a-year—towards providing legal edu¬ 
cation ; and it would seem that at more than one of the Inns of 
Court the benchers (as some one facetiously suggested) might 
well surrender an masse to take the benefit of the Insolvent Act. 
They frankly disclose how their funds are spent. First, there is 
the maintenance of the buildings of the societies, and this is a 
heavy branch of expenditure : the Inner Temple, for instance, 
expended in building and repairing chambers, during a period of 
about thirty years, ending June, 1853, nearly 180,000Z. Besides 
that expenditure, there was the magnificent restoration of the 
church, which cost the Societies of the Inner and Middle Temple 
(in round numbers) 53,000Z. The Inner Temple, moreover, will 
have to expend in a few years more than 100,00(F. to re-build 
houses that have become unsafe.* The whole funded property of 

* Events that have passed into English history, and pleasant memories of 
great jurists and men of letters of other days, are associated with many of 
these decaying old houses. Since this article appeared, the auctioneer’s 
hammer has waved over the tenements on the west side of Inner Temple- 
lane, and apropos of one of these, The Builder gave the following notice of 
Dr. Johnson’s lodging in the Temple:—On the 1st of October the house¬ 
breakers will be masters of the situation, the bricks will go for what they 
will fetch, and, the site being cleared, the honourable benchers of the 
Inner Temple will proceed to improve their property by building better 
houses in the place of the rubbish removed. Ah! but is it all rubbish ? 
Not quite. Some of it has a value; and, though we can scarcely offer an 
objection to its removal (benchers, like other people, will “ do what they 
like with their own,” and progress will not be stayed), at least let us keep 
a slight record of how it looked and what it was associated with. On the 
transom of the doorway at No. 1 (there is a lamp projecting and a large 
carved hood above) is written, “Dr. Johnson’s Staircase,” and up this truly 
enough he often went with Goldsmith, Reynolds, Boswell, and others, of 
whom tlfis present generation are never tired of hearing. They belong to 
us, indeed, though they seem to have lived in a past age. We spoke, not 
long ago, to a hale and clear-headed gentleman, still in the like condition, 
who recollected, though he was a small child at the time, seeing the pursy 
doctor with his arm round a post in Fleet-street, resting for breath after 
some exertion; and who, moreover, had been taken up into the arms of the 
kind-hearted Goldsmith. Dr. Johnson lived in this house between 1760 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


73 


the Middle Temple, which, in 1854, was about 60,000/., is stated 
to be insufficient for the repairs and re-building now to be under¬ 
taken; and the 7,000/. a-year which the society derives from its 
rental is exceeded by expenditure. It does not appear that the 
state of Lincoln’s Inn is so rotten in regard to its old buildings. 
The noble new Hall and Library which, in 1845, was completed 
by that society, cost (in round numbers) 88,000/. Then, there 
is the maintenance of the libraries, though we cannot but 
observe that the whole expenditure on books is a trifle compared 
with that upon bricks. The Inner Temple, for example, has 
spent on an average from 600/. to 700/. a-year in buying books, 
and the expenditure of the Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn in 
making additions to their noble libraries has been equally limited. 
When we see to what dimensions the literature of law has 
expanded, it is difficult to think without envy of the simple and 
happy times when Glanvil, Bracton, and Fleta* were the only 
authors whose works a student of common law had to read. But 
much heavier is the cost of providing food for the body, of 
providing, that is to say, dinners for the bench-table and con¬ 
tributing to provide those of the bar-table and the students’- 
table, for the benchers seem to carry on unlicensed the business 
of the licensed victualler upon a very extensive scale, feeding 
their students at all events substantially, if they do not sustain 
them with legal food. In 1854 there were in Lincoln’s Inn Hall 
upwards of thirteen thousand dinners; and in the Inner and 

and 1765, and it was during this time that the association, which afterwards 
became so renowned as the Literary Club, took a regular form. Joshua 
Reynolds, Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Dr. Nugent, Langton, Topham 
Beauclerk, Chamier, and Hawkins were the original members. It was while 
Johnson occupied these rooms that the adventure occurred, as described by 
Boswell, when the dissipated but accomplished Beauclerk, returning once 
with Langton from supper, roused up the grave doctor at three in the 
morning and dared him to a ramble. Many, indeed, are the incidents, now 
common in our mouths as household words, connected with this lodging of 
his in the Temple.” 

* It seems that even in the reign of Edward I. a learned lawyer could 
not always keep out of a prison, and that legal studies went on within its 
walls, for it is said that the famous treatise called Fleta was written by a 
lawyer who was confined in the Fleet prison in that reign. 


74 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn the expenses 
incidental to the halls and dinners, including the requisite 
establishment, amounted in the same year, in the aggregate, to 
more than 14,000/. The salaries of officers constitute a branch of 
expenditure no less heavy. Surprising as it is that the charge 
upon the two Societies of the Temple in respect only of the 
church, the master, reader, organist, singers, and subordinate 
officers should exceed 2,000Z. a-year; this is the least objec¬ 
tionable item in the list of salaries. The Inner Temple pays 
nearly 5,000/. a-year in salaries; the Middle Temple, 3,156Z. ; 
Lincoln’s Inn, 3,660/.; and Gray’s Inn, 2,200Z. Some of the 
servitors appear to be preposterously multiplied: (Ex. gr.) at the 
Middle Temple there is a “chief butler and verger” with 150/. 
a-year, who, it may be supposed, is a kind of symposiarch ; a 
“bench butler,” who is responsible for the wine; a “puisne 
bench butler and verger;” an “assistant bench butler;” a “bar 
butler;” a “ puisne bar butler and verger;” an “ assistant puisne 
bar butler; ” and a servus servorum called “ assistant butler.” So 
much for expenditure. It appears that the chambers of the 
societies, which are supposed to be held by them “ for the 
lodging, reception, and education of the professors and students 
of the laws,” are, as to the principal portion, let for the most 
money that can be fairly obtained, in order to meet the expen¬ 
diture of the society, and as to the remainder, appropriated by 
the benchers themselves. That appropriation of chambers seems 
to be derived from the custom, in former times, by which every 
barrister who was promoted to be a bencher undertook to become 
a “reader,” and in consideration of his sustaining that honour¬ 
able office had chambers assigned to him. From the time when 
the readings were given up the benchers have paid a heavy fine 
in lieu of reading, and have retained their right to chambers. 

It is now time to glance briefly at the events from which the 
Inns of' Court appear to derive their origin, and at their history 
as societies constituted for the promotion of juridical studies and 
for regulating admission to the bar. 

Blackstone attributes to the permanent establishment at West¬ 
minster of the King’s Court of Common Pleas, early in the 
thirteenth century, the formation of the practitioners of the 


f 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


75 


common law into a society or aggregate body and the beginning 
of the Inns of Court. It seems that at the time when King John 
granted Magna Charta the civilians and canonists had their schools 
of law not only at Oxford but within the city of London, and 
that ecclesiastical persons were there and elsewhere the scholars; 
but it does not clearly appear that any place was dedicated to the 
study of the common law of England, or that its professors were 
anywhere assembled together. Early in the reign of Henry III. 
ecclesiastical constitutions promulgated by the Bishop of Salis¬ 
bury, forbade clerks and priests to practise as advocates in the 
courts of common law; and later in the same reign Pope 
Innocent IY. prohibited the clergy from studying the common 
law in the English schools and universities. Down to the close 

Cj 

of King John’s reign, the clerical order had been the depositories 
of all legal learning, and clergymen alone were the judges and 
justiciars of the land. But it probably now became necessary to 
train a body of laymen for the judicial business of the country. 
So in the reign of Henry III. the students of the municipal or 
common law were encouraged to associate in a collegiate manner; 
some houses situate between the cities of London and West¬ 
minster were acquired by them, and the king, in order (as it 
would seem) to foster this infant school of law, prohibited the 
study of the common law within the city of London. In the 
opinion of Lord Chief Justice Coke these regulations were the 
origin of a juridical university, and the “apprentices of the 
law ”—as its students were termed—formed a new order of 
graduates, and became, instead of the clergy, the practitioners in 
the king’s courts. In Edward I.’s reign the practice of the 
common law is said to have become a distinct profession. Eccle¬ 
siastical persons, nevertheless, occur in the two succeeding reigns 
as advocates, but their clients seem to have been of the religious 
orders; and, to judge from instances that occasionally appear in 
history, their emoluments were not very magnificent. Thus, in 
the reign of Edward III., Eustace de Folleville bound himself to 
be counsel for life to the Abbot of Croyland in all suits relating 
to his house, for which general retainer he had a yearly salary of 
twenty shillings; and in 1339 Simon de Islip, Canon of Lincoln 
(who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury), received 


76 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


“ for his good advice and assistance in the affairs of the convent 
against all persons hut the Bishop of Lincoln and the Abbot of 
Peterborough,” a yearly fee from the convent of ten marks, and 
“ half a piece of clerk’s cloth, with one fur of strendeling and 
one of squirrel at Christmas.” 

But it must not be understood that the original settlements of 
the common lawyers were on the site of the Temple, or where 
other Inns of Court now stand. At the time when the students 
of the law first associated together, little more than half a century 
had elapsed since the migration of the white-robed Templars 
from their original Norman house (which stood near Holborn on 
the site of Southampton-buildings) to the lands on which the 
convent buildings of the Inner and the Middle Temple were 
afterwards erected, and which they had acquired soon after the 
year 1162. There they proceeded to build the famous round 
church, which was consecrated in 1185, and which seems to 
have given the name of the New Temple to their great convent 
by the Thames. 

In those days the illustrious military monks were still 
* 

employed in defending the Holy Land from the unbelieving 
Moslem, as they had been ever since the time when 

From the moist regions of the Western star, 

The wandering Hermit waked the tide of war; 

Their limbs all iron, and their souls all flame, 

A countless host the Red Cross warriors came. 

Embassies then passed between London and Jerusalem, and the 
Templars were lords of nearly all Palestine. In the “ New 
Temple,” sovereigns of England were their guests; there councils 
assembled, and there the military friars dispensed a royal hospi¬ 
tality, the master of their order enjoying the rank and precedence 
of a prince. But before the year 1310 those splendours were no 
more: the Templars had been seized, their order was suppressed, 
and the lawyers succeeded to the occupation of their convent. 
We are enabled to conjecture what the Temple was at that time 
from architectural remains, and from an inquisition that was 
then taken. The ancient hall of the Templars stood where the 
present hall of the Inner Temple stands, and appears from its 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


77 


remains to have been of Pointed work, probably of the same 
period as that beautiful fabric, the oblong portion of the church, 
which was completed in 1240.* At the western end stood other 
buildings of the Templars’ monastery, and at the eastern end, on 
the site of the present library, was the house of the master of the 
order. A range of cloisters connected these buildings and the 
hall with the church, and a cloister extended to the east. The 
“ king’s highway” (now Fleet Street) ran by the northern wall 
of the monastery, and walls divided it from the gardens of the 
Bishops of Exeter on the west, and from the lands of the White 
Friars upon the east. Besides the church, there was the chapel 
of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the edifice and cloister of which 
extended from the door of the hall to the ancient gate of the 
Temple. In the church and cemetery many founders and 
brethren of the order lay interred. On the north of the ceme¬ 
tery were thirteen houses, one of which was the lodging of the 
Bishops of Ely, and by the inquisition it was found that their 
site, and the space between the church and the chapel, the 
cloisters and the walls, and the site of the cloisters and the hall, 
were sanctified places dedicated to God. 

Such was the Temple when the lawyers came to occupy its 
deserted chambers. It then stood in the suburbs of London. 
The monastery and gardens of the White Friars bounded it on 
the east; on the south was the Thames, upon the moving 
pageants of which they might look from their own pleasant 
grounds; and there was a great water-gate through which “ the 
king’s clerks and justices ” were wont to pass to Westminster. 
To the west, the banks of the Thames, on the line of what is 
now the Strand, were occupied by episcopal residences, the 
nearest of which was the Inn of the Bishops of Exeter, after¬ 
wards Essex House, f Beyond this was the Inn of the Bishops 

* Some remains of monastic buildings are below the present hall, and 
the buttery and adjoining chamber have vaulted ceilings. 

f At a later period, viz. in 1666, the Essex House property was pur¬ 
chased by the Society of the Temple. Essex blouse, then described as 
“ a large, but ugly mansion,” stood on the site of Essex and Devereux 
Courts. Originally the town-house of the Bishops of Exeter (as above 
mentioned), who held it under the Knights Hospitallers as the lawyers did 
the Temple, it passed, after the dissolution of religious houses, and after 
forfeiture by successive lay holders, into the hands of Dudley Earl of 


78 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


of Bath, afterwards the mansion of the Earls of Arundel, which 
in its turn has left only the memory of its place in the names of 
streets called after its noble owners; then there was the Bishop 
of Chester’s Inn (first built by Walter Langton in the reign of 
Edward I.) which stood between the Thames and the church of 
St. Mary-le-Strand which was destroyed, together with the inn, 
by Protector Somerset:—an Inn of Chancery was this Chester’s 
Inn, when the old poet Occleve dwelt there,—and near to it 
were the Inns of the Bishops of Worcester and LlandafF, Durham 
and Carlisle. Adjoining to the latter was the palace of the 
Savoy, then an imposing castle; and in the vicinity there was 
the house of the Bishops of Coventry, where, at the stone cross, 
Edward I/s judges of assize sometimes sat. Then on the north 
of the Templars’ Courts, and beyond the line of Fleet Street, was 
.the site of the Old Temple, and near to it the house of the 
Bishops of Lincoln, built in the year 1147, which afterwards 
came to the Earls of Southampton, whose name is still preserved 
upon its site. Adjacent to these mansions, in what became 
Chancery Lane, were the palace and grounds of the Bishops of 
Chichester,* who possessed in that locality (from the gift of 
Henry III. to Ralph Neville) a large tract of land—then open 
country—now part of Lincoln’s Inn and the site of Lincoln’s Inn 
Fields. Here stood the palace and productive gardens of Henry 
de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln,! from whom that other great Inn of 
Court, little less ancient than the Temple, derives its name. 
Such were the neighbours of the lawyers when, more than five 
centuries ago, they first settled in the Temple, where the pro¬ 
fessors of the laws were thenceforth (as old Fuller remarks) to 
use learning and eloquence for the purpose of defending 
Christians from each other as the soldiers of the Cross, their 

Leicester, and from him to his unfortunate step-son, Robert Devereux, 
Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s celebrated favourite and victim. 

* Symond’s Inn to this day belongs to the see, and the town-inn of the 
Bishops of Chichester seems to have stood near to it in Chancery Lane. 

f When the earl was residing at his inn in the year 1296, the garden, 
which was of very great extent, was inclosed by a paling and fosse, and had 
a pond or vivary in which pikes were preserved. It was managed by a 
head-gardener, whose annual fee was 52 s. Zd. with a robe or livery, and he 
had numerous assistants, whose wages amounted to 51. a-year. 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


79 


predecessors there, had used the sword to defend the holy places 
from the unbeliever. 

Upon the dissolution of the Templars, the professors and 
students of jurisprudence (who then occur by the name of the 
Men of Law) acquired their lodging in the Temple by a compo¬ 
sition with the Earl of Lancaster, to whom, as lord of the fee, 
the Temple had then escheated. After the execution of that 
popular and powerful prince, the property was granted by the 
king to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, but on his death 
it reverted to the crown, and was conferred on the Hospitallers 
of St. John, who were then becoming a very powerful body. 
Some years, however, elapsed before the prior and brethren were 
left in quiet possession, and they granted the property to the 
lawyers in fee-farm at the annual rent of 10 1. which was paid to 
the Hospitallers from the time of Edward II. until the dissolution 
of their own order in 31 Hen. VIII. When the lawyers came 
hither, they found upon the buildings the shield of the Templars 
— Argent , a plain Cross gules ,—and the Holy Lamb bearing the 
banner of the Order surmounted by a Red Cross; and they 
thenceforth assumed that bearing and cognisance for their own. 
Amongst the legal fraternity who thus succeeded to the military 
brotherhood, many of the rules and usages of the ancient Tem¬ 
plars found a continued existence. The professors of the common 
law, who had the exclusive right of audience in the Court of 
Common Pleas from the time of Edward III., became a privi¬ 
leged brotherhood as freres serjens; the ancient ceremony of 
admission into that legal brotherhood closely resembled the 
former ceremony of reception into the monastic fraternity of the 
Temple ; the coif is said to have descended from the fratres 
servientes of the ancient Templars to those of the law; and some 
observances of that renowned fraternity prevailed down to our 
times in the common hall of the Temple, though its paved courts 
no longer echoed the tread of the military monks. 

The manciple, or purveyor of provisions to the lawyers of the 
Temple, is referred to by Chaucer about 1362, who says that 
functionary had of masters more 

-than thries ten 

That were of lawe expert and curious. 


80 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


The Temple appears to have formed one Inn of Court or 
Society until the reign ol Henry VI., when the professors and 
students of the law residing there, having multiplied and grown, 
as we are told, to “so great a bulk that they could not be conve¬ 
niently regulated in one society, or contained in the old hall, 
they divided into the two societies, thenceforth known as the 
societies of the Inner and the Middle Temple. Those were the 
palmy days in which Chief Justice Fortescue wrote his celebrated 
treatise in praise of the laws of England; when in the Inns of 
Court and Inns of Chancery—the two sorts of collegiate houses 
which the legal university then comprised—the knights and 
barons, with other grandees and nobles of the realm, were accus¬ 
tomed to place their sons, even though their parents might not 
desire that they should become profoundly learned in the law, 
or get their living by its practice. At that time there were 
about two thousand students in these several inns, all of whom, 
Fortescue says, were gentlemen by birth; and he sets down the 
annual expense of each student at 78/.—a sum equivalent, 
perhaps, to 450/. of our money. 

The members are supposed to have raised the buildings of the 
Temple out of their own funds, being induced so to do by 
licences to build chambers which the builders were to enjoy for 
their lives. Tanfield Court was first built in 26 Henry VIII. 
Ten years before, the lawyers had raised an embankment-wall 
between the river and their gardens. At the accession of Queen 
Mary, the kitchen was newly built, and at this time it would 
appear the Society had very little house-property in the Temple 
besides the great manor-house or “mansion” and the hall, and 
its revenue was derived chiefly from fines. But during the reign 
of Elizabeth many buildings were raised. The present Middle 
Temple Hall, which was ten years in building, was completed in 
1572, in the treasurership of Plowden the Jurist. Here Twelfth 
Night was performed on the 2nd February, 1602, and (as is 
observed in Charles Knight’s Shakespeare) it is pleasant to knoiv 
that we have a place yet remaining where a play of our great 
dramatist was listened to by his contemporaries. The Society of 
the Inner Temple appear to have still assembled in the venerable 
hall in which they had met from the time of Edward III., 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


81 


and which was not taken down and rebuilt until the present 
century. 

Early in the reign of Elizabeth, in accordance with the per¬ 
suasion of Master Gerard Leigh, the Society of the Inner Temple 
substituted for the time-honoured bearing of the Holy Lamb a 
rampant winged horse, with the motto Volat ad asthera Yirtus, 
by which strange device the old herald (as suggested by 
Mr. Addison) probably intended to signify—in allusion to the 
fable of Pegasus forming the fountain of Hippocrene by striking 
the rock—that the lawyers aspired to cultivate the liberal sciences, 
and even to become poets. But however the Inner Templars 
may emulate the fabled achievement of their equine prototype, 
the Middle Templars lately resolved to build porticoes of science 
upon the site of their actual fountain—that well-known slender 
jet whose waters have always sounded so refreshingly as they rang 
upon the sunny pavement, and whose 

-low singing, heard on the wind 

of summer night by many a wearied student has been celebrated 
by such pleasing poetry. This assumption of the winged horse 
by the one society and the retention of the ancient Christian 
symbol by the other, occasioned in our own time those well- 
known ironical verses:— 

As through the Templars’ courts you go, 

The lamb and horse display’d 
In emblematic figures show 
The merits of their trade : 

That clients may infer from hence 
How just is their profession— 

The lamb displays their innocence, 

The horse their expedition. 

Without stopping to inquire whether clients in former times 
enjoyed their present privileges in regard to 

-justice without guile 

And law without delay, 

we find that from the time of the dissolution of the fraternity ol 


G 




82 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Hospitallers the professors and students of law in the Temple 
remained in possession of all the property they had held from the 
time of Edward II., but without obtaining any confirmation from 
the Crown until the 6 th James I., when on their petition the 
king granted to them, at the accustomed rent of 10/. (then paid 
by each society), all the property of which they were then and 
are now in possession, to serve (as the grant expressed it) “ for 
the entertainment and education of the students and the pro¬ 
fessors of the laws residing in the Inns of the Inner and the 
Middle Temple for ever.” The Templars thereupon made the 
king a magnificent present of a stately cup of pure gold weighing 
two hundred ounces, of which a glowing description is given. 
The old fee-farm rent of 10/. continued to be paid to the crown 
until the time of Charles II. when it was purchased by the 
societies. In the meantime, many of the courts and buildings of 
the Temple that still exist were erected; and now, upon the 
lands for which 10/. a-year were paid, the houses built have so 
enormously increased in value that the present rental exceeds 
16,000/. a-year! The societies possess little property beyond 
their respective inns. There is a place called Scales’s Inn, in 
Queen Street, Cheapside, from which the Middle Temple receives 
40/. a-year (it may at some time have been a house for the 
lawyers), and this rent-charge from it was devised to trustees, 
who were to be benchers, for the strange purpose of finding an 
arbitrator, who is to sit during term once a-week in the Middle 
Temple Hall, to arbitrate upon all subjects and between all 
persons in Her Majesty’s dominions! The 40/. are divided 
between two gentlemen, who are not only ready to arbitrate, if 
called upon, but to do so gratuitously. It is worth mentioning, 
too, that the tavern called the “ Rainbow,” one of the first coffee¬ 
houses established in England, was left to the benchers by a 
citizen and cloth-worker two centuries ago. 

But it is time to pass from the Temple to mention some facts 
connected with the other societies; yet it must be remembered 
that it is not the object of this paper to trace their history, or 
give any account of their possessions, for these particulars may be 
found in books. In the evidence given before the Royal Com¬ 
missioners few facts are stated that were not previously known 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


83 


with regard to the origin and growth of the Inns of Court; of 
such points in their history and present state as are the most 
interesting to the general reader we shall, however, give a brief 
outline, commencing with Lincoln’s Inn. 

The Temple has been called the mother and most ancient of 
all the Inns of Court; but Lincoln’s Inn, as a seat of legal 
learning, seems to have been co-eval in its origin with the 
Temple, for it became a place of lodging and education for 
students of the law in the reign of Edward II. They held upon 
lease the greater part of the estate which Henry III. had 
bestowed upon the see of Chichester in this locality. The 
earliest muniments of title at Lincoln’s Inn do not afford 
evidence of any grant from the crown; nor can the history of 
the society be traced for the century and a-half which elapsed 
between the time when the lawyers came hither to occupy the 
noble mansion of the Earl of Lincoln, and the time of Chief 
Justice Fortescue (himself a member of Lincoln’s Inn), to which 
era the foundation of their library—the most ancient collection 
in London—is referred. Between the days of Agincourt and 
those of the Armada, the Society of Lincoln’s Inn advanced in 
prosperity and importance, but it did not acquire the fee-simple 
of its property until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Sir 
Edward Sulyard sold the fee to the benchers. Its chief build¬ 
ings were raised in the Tudor age, and even then Lincoln’s Inn 
was famous for the walks under the elms which are celebrated by 
Ben Jonson. The old hall—long used for commons in term, and 
by chancellors out of term—dates from the time of Henry VII., 
and the fine old gate-tower of brick was erected by Sir Thomas 
Lovell in 1518. Most of the old buildings were raised in that 
century or in the reign of James I., to which period the chapel 
also belongs. With these characteristic edifices of olden time, 
and the chief additions of modern time—we mean the fine 
Corinthian facade of Stone Buildings, and the noble new hall 
which recals the architecture of Eton College,—Lincoln’s Inn 
can boast quite a varied group of historical and picturesque 
buildings. The income of Lincoln’s Inn from rents was nearly 
10,000Z. in the year 1854, and from payments by members 
upwards of 8,000Z. more ; but the outgoings (which include 

G 2 


84 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


1,350/. for interest of debt incurred for the new building,) 
exceeded in that year 14,000/. 

Die origin of the Society of Gray’s Inn seems involved in 
mystery. In Edward III.’s time, mention occurs of the lawyers 
of Gray’s Inn ; and the treasurer, in his evidence before the 
Commissioners, states that from that time the society held the 
property of the inn under the Lords de Gray, to whom it 
belonged as early as the time of Edward II. “ The manor of 
Portpoole and Gray’s Inn ” was both acquired and lost by the 
prior and monks of Shene in the reign of Henry VIII.; and for 
the Gray’s Inn property a fee-farm rent of 61. 13-s. 4 d. was paid 
by the society to the crown until the year 1733, when it was 
purchased by the society from the representatives of the crown- 
grantees. The real property of the inn produces a rental of 
3,700/. a-year. 

If in recent times this ancient inn has fallen from the rank and 
estimation it once enjoyed, and cannot rival the other Inns of 
Court in the academical distinction, the patrician family, or the 
professional eminence of the bulk of its members, it could boast 
great men at more than one period of its history ; and in the 
seventeenth century Gray’s Inn was famous as well for its 
Readings as its Revels. From the time of Bacon, who planted 
elm-trees here, Gray’s Inn has been famous for its gardens. 
Howel, in the reign of Charles L, speaks of the far-stretching, 
delightful prospect they enjoyed, and of the choice walks, to 
which the beauties both of city and suburbs were accustomed to 
resort in summer to breathe fresh air—and, we dare say, disturb 
the thoughts of the studious lawyers. 

Passing now from the Inns of Court to the lesser inns, called 
Inns of Chancery, we find the same obscurity with regard to 
their origin. During the fifty years of Edward III.’s reign, only 
two of the lesser inns that now exist—viz. Clifford’s Inn and 
Thavie’s Inn,—were known, in neither of which is there any 
trace of an original connection with the Inns of Court, or of the 
Inns of Chancery having stood in a subordinate relation towards 
them. Clifford’s Inn derives its name from the noble family to 
whom it once belonged, whose lease of it to students of the law 
was granted in the year 1344, when the property was described 



THE INNS OF COURT. 


85 


as “ adjoining the Church of St. Dimstan-in-the-West, in the 
suburbs of London.” In Thavie’s Inn apprenticii ad legem were 
accustomed to dwell even before that date. According to 
Fortescue, who wrote his celebrated treatise in the reign of 
Henry VI., the legal university then comprised two sorts of 
collegiate houses—the one called (in his time) Inns of Chancery, 
and the other called Inns of Court. And in these inns of both 
kinds, the learned chief justice tells us, the knights and barons, 
with other grandees and nobles of the realm, were accustomed to 
place their sons, although their parents might not desire that 
they should become profoundly learned in the law, or get their 
living by its practice. In his time there were about two thou¬ 
sand students in these several inns, all of whom were gentlemen 
by birth (filii nobilium), as indeed they had need to be, seeing 
how great was the annual expense of their maintenance, for the 
28 1. which Fortescue sets down as the yearly expense of each 
student was equal to 450/. of our money. The modern disuse of 
this custom is attributed by Blackstone to the desuetude in these 
societies of all regimen and academical superintendence with 
regard either to morals or studies, and to the want of leisure or 
of resolution sufficient to induce those who have finished a 
university course to enter upon a new scheme of study at a new 
place of instruction. In the reign of Henry VI., or at all events 
at the time when Fortescue wrote, the lesser houses or Inns of 
Chancery had increased to ten in number; but about the year 
1580 they had become reduced to eight, and of those only five 
now remain, the rest of the existing Inns of Chancery being of 
later foundation. 

The cause of the distinction between Inns of Court and Inns 
of Chancery is to be found, according to Mr. Foss, in the fact 
that the students in the latter studied the elements of the law, 
and the original writs, which were prepared in the Chancery. 
Be this as it may, these lesser houses seem to have been auxiliary 
to the Inns of Court; and formerly there was a custom—but it 
had become obsolete before 1629 *—that a student for the bar 
be first admitted of an Inn of Chancery before becoming a 

I 

* Lord Campbell’s Lives of Chief Justices, i. 515. 


86 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


member of an Inn of Court. Of that custom the life ol Sir 
Thomas More affords an illustrious example, for he studied law 
at New Inn previously to entering at Lincoln’s Inn, of which 
society he afterwards became “ Reader,” and with the memories 
of which the student, as he sees the light stream through the 
heraldic memorial of that devoted martyr, loves to associate the 
high form that seems (as some one has poetically said) to stand 
in the sunset of the old faith transfigured on the horizon, tinged 
with the light of its dying glory. 

From the evidence given by the “Ancients” (as they are 
called) of the present Inns of Chancery, they appear to be mere 
voluntary societies, none of which acknowledge trusts for the 
education of their members, or do anything practically for the 
advancement of legal education; nor do any means appear to 
exist of rendering their funds available to the study of the law.* 
The origin of their assumed connection with the Inns of Court 
is not made out; but it cannot be doubted that they were educa¬ 
tional establishments, and the halls which many of them still 
possess shew their fitness for collegiate purposes. Formerly, 
barristers were not the only legal practitioners for whose pro¬ 
fessional education provisions were made, and from an early time 
attorneys were members of the lesser inns, and also, as it would 
seem, of the Inns of Court; for in the reign of Philip and Mary 
it was ordained that no attorney should be thenceforth admitted 
of any of the Inns of Court. The attorneys, at this day the 
actual members of the Inns of Chancery, now complain (Report , 
p. 129) that they have lost the advantages their body once 
possessed. 

We have mentioned that only five of the existing Inns of 
Chancery are older than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. New Inn 
is one of the lesser inns that became a house for students of the 
law in the fifteenth century (but after 1485). Upon the destruc¬ 
tion of Strand Inn by “Protector” Somerset the students removed 
to New Inn, “it being (as we read) also under the government 
of the Middle Temple”—a statement which seems to indicate that 
the students of both were affiliated to the greater Inn of Court. 

* Indeed they have in some instances become private property, and in 
others are heavily indebted. 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


87 


At New Inn the “ancients” of the society, like the knights of 
King Arthur, dine at their “round table,” and the rest of the 
members dine at other tables, the society providing the entertain¬ 
ment. This enviable privilege of free«commons would seem to 
have been acquired by the fortunate possessors signing their 
names in a book and paying five guineas. 

Clement’s Inn seems to have risen from the ruins of the monas¬ 
tery of St. Clement, and there the legal settlers courted Themis 
and Clio by the fountain of the Danish martyr, but how this 
society of lawyers became connected with the Inner Temple has 
not been discovered. The society is consituted of “principal, 
ancients, and commoners.” Several of their muniments w T ere 
burned, and some of those that remain “cannot be read,” but 
their title begins only after the Restoration. After being left 
readerless for twenty years, the society asked the Inner Temple, 
as a nursing mother, to send them a reader, and one, we learn, 
was appointed, but “ he went out of town without reading,” 
which is not surprising, for the steward of the Inner Temple, on 
being asked, “Do you make any payment to the reader?” 
replies, “ None at all; on the contrary, he pays something to the 
porters”—to secure, we suppose, at all events their attendance, 
and the payment ought to be liberal, because it is stated further 
on that the subject of the reading has generally been a new Act 
of Parliament. The members are only six in number. In their 
dinners they seem to be very frugal. On the “grand days” 
even the dry “ancients” are allowed only half a pint of wine each. 
The buildings are so old that they are always wanting repairs, 
and continually threatening to fall; indeed, it seems as if they 
would come down, like the opossums before Colonel Crockett, 
without waiting to be condemned by the surveyor. This remark¬ 
able society has no rental, no library, no students, no chapel, nor 
any chaplain ; but there is a reserved vault in the church of 
St. Clement the Dane’s where the principal and ancients had the 
privilege of being buried, if they wdshed it. 

Then at Lyon’s Inn all that was substantial and vital seems to 
have still more completely departed. Here the members do not 
even form a convivial party at dinner. The Commissioners found 
the whole society to consist, indeed, of only two members—two 


88 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


surviving “ ancients”—the last men left, and it is surprising that 
they escaped the notice of Mr. Barnum. lhe oldest of thesd 
venerable shadows “thinks he remembers” that the ancients were 
once five in number, and ihat he has heard of their dining in hall 
a hundred years ago. But now the hall dinners are as unsub¬ 
stantial and imaginary as the members, and it is equally needless 
to provide mental nourishment, inasmuch as there have been no 
students to nourish for twenty years. One of the ancients 
remembers to have seen once in his boyhood a reader, but only 
the ancients attended his reading. There is no library; there is 
a hall, but it is seldom opened; they have deeds but no rental; a 
steward but no dinners; a kitchen but no cook;—so that Lyon’s 
Inn seems to be a body without functions or members. 

Some of the other Inns of Chancery appear to have had less 
appreciation of the value of “readers,” for when their parent inn 
sent them a reader they were rebellious, but now they accept the 
good the benchers give them. 

It would hardly be interesting to glance at the history and the 
state of the other Inns of Chancery.* It will be sufficient to say 
that none of them appear to be in such a state of decrepitude as 
the houses just mentioned, but they are equally ineffectual as 
regards any provisions for promoting the study of the law by 
their members, most of whom are practising attorneys. 

As regards the education of candidates for the bar in earlier 
times, the history of the Inns of Court shows that the student was 
assisted by ‘ 1 readers ” in different branches of the law, who were 
provided by the inn, and had the advantage of taking part in 
those “ moots” or exercises which assisted him in acquiring prac¬ 
tical dexterity in argument, and accustomed him (so to speak) 
to the atmosphere of law. These “readings” were anciently of 
great importance and dignity. It was long the custom for young 

* One of these is Staple Inn, traditionally so named from having been 
the inn or hostel of the merchants of the woolstaple, whither it was 
removed from Westminster by Richard II. in 1378. It became an Inn of 
Chancery in the time of Henry V., and the inheritance of it was granted 
by Henry VIII. to Gray’s Inn. The Holborn front is of the time of 
James I., and is one of the oldest existing specimens of our metropolitan 
street architecture. 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


89 


men of family and fortune to attend them for the purpose of 
acquiring enough knowledge of law to qualify them to manage 
their estates and act as magistrates, and this custom prevailed in, 
if not after, the seventeenth century. Every barrister who was 
promoted to be a bencher undertook to become reader, in con¬ 
sideration of which service he had his chambers, and at Gray’s 
Inn is recorded to have had liberal allowances of wine and 
venison. The readers used to give immense feasts and spend 
an enormous sum of money at their readings, but this entertain¬ 
ment seems to have been changed for a fine or money-payment 
after the time of the merry monarch; and, the readings having 
ceased, the bencher, as already mentioned, pays a large fine in 
lieu of reading, retaining his right to chambers. Glowing 
accounts are given of the reader’s entertainments in the good old 
times. The last occasion on which the sovereign was a guest 
was the entertainment given in the Inner Temple Hall by 
Sir Heneage Finch, solicitor-general, when Charles II. took part 
in the revels. At these entertainments it was the custom to 
serve a swan or a peacock whole, as the luxurious Romans did at 
the table of Hortensius. It seems as if the Municipal Reform 
Act, which has had so fatal an effect on civic festivities through¬ 
out English country towns, had extended to the Inns of Court. 
The bench-table, indeed, may be occasionally furnished with the 
ambrosial champagne and the melting turtle, but where are now 
the feasts and the music which formed such inspiriting associa¬ 
tions of the forensic halls? Where are the gay revels that were 
led by a chancellor, and the entertainments that were given to a 
prince? The readings long remained in desuetude, and it is only 
lately that they have been educationally revived by the lectures 
which the Inns of Court have instituted. The exercises have 
dwindled to the merest shadow of what they were, and have not 
been replaced by any compulsory examination. The empty form 
of our student days is thus described by Mr. Whateley, in his 
evidence:—“When I was a student I used to be marched up to 
the barristers’ table with a paper in my hand, and I said, ‘I hold 
the widow’—the barrister made a bow, and I went away; and 
the next man said, ‘I hold the widow shall not’—and the bar¬ 
rister made a bow, and he went off.” 


90 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Of course, as far as regards the acquisition of legal knowledge 
and fitness for performing the duties of the advocate, a man (as one 
of the witnesses remarks) might as well pass through a hollow 
tree as through an Inn of Court under the system that has pre¬ 
vailed ; and the ordeal of hall and bar-table has not even 
prevented unworthy persons from proceeding to the degree of 
barrister-at-law. At Gray’s Inn the benchers called (Rep. p. 137) 
a man who was a police inspector somewhere in the country, and 
another man who was found keeping a shop under a false name. 

And now, turning from retrospect, let us look, though it must 
be very briefly, at the educational arrangements of the Inns of 
Court, and the suggestions for improving their efficiency. 

All that is at present required of a person who wishes to 
become a student of the law in England, with the view of being 
ultimately called to the bar, is that he become a member of one 
of the four Inns of Court; that he keep twelve terms by dining 
a certain number of times in hall; and that he attend during one 
year the lectures of two of the readers appointed by the Council 
of Legal Education, or, at his option, submit to a public exami¬ 
nation, which is compulsory only upon those who do not attend 
the lectures. These requirements present a striking contrast to 
the systems of legal education pursued in the principal States of 
Europe, in Scotland, and in the United States of America, and 
fall short of what the community may properly demand of 
societies empowered to confer upon selected individuals a pecu¬ 
liar position and attendant privileges. Mr. James, in his sen¬ 
sibly-written History of the French Bar , contrasts with our 
requirements, in regard to legal education, those which prevail in 
the universities of Holland, Germany, and France,* and remarks 
that it is astonishing that the English bar, as a body supposed to 

* The French bar may be said to have had its origin no longer ago than 
1783, when the law school (whose staff consisted of six professors of Roman 
or canon law, a professor of French or municipal law, and twelve assistant 
professors,) was solemnly inaugurated. It was in 1804 that, under the 
Napoleon Code, the Ecole de Droit was re-opened on a new basis. There 
are now nine law schools in France and 20,000 students. The graduates 
are bachelors, licentiates, and doctors. For this degree the course requires 
four years’ study. The student has to submit to compulsory examinations, 
and cannot obtain business without six years’ study of theory and practice. 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


91 


be learned, can have remained so long contented with a system 
which offers no guarantee of fitness for the privileges it bestows. 
A positive advantage is acquired by the status —the name and 
degree of barrister, and contingent advantages may be obtained 
through the partiality of friends. 

When the recipient is not so well educated as he ought to be, 
the community may suffer from his being sent forth bearing what 
may be termed the mint-mark of qualification. This is not a 
question of individual capacity for success: the character of the 
Bar of England is concerned. The existence of a highly-educated, 
liberal-minded, independent and enlightened bar is a safeguard 
of the community; and it is not less important to the public than 
to the individual that only persons of general as well as profes¬ 
sional acquirements should go forth with the mint-mark (so to 
speak) of the degree of barrister-at-law. So thought the Greeks 
under the ancient Empire of the East. In the time of Constan¬ 
tine, when Berytus—the Beyrout of modern days—attracted 
students by its fame in law and merchants by its Tyrian purple, 
and its schools of legal education rendered it “ the metropolis of 
ancient law,” students were required to pass at least five years in 
its scholastic course. This care was taken for the due instruction 
of the advocates, because—then as now—the legal profession had 
great influence on the interests of mankind, and the student pro¬ 
ceeded from the schools and lecture-rooms of Berytus to aid with 
legal knowledge the governors of colonial possessions, or to fill 
offices of government at home. Paris seems now to be much 
what Berytus was as a school of civil students. The candidates 
for professional degrees assemble at Paris from all parts of France, 
when they have passed through their collegiate course of instruc¬ 
tion in the provinces or the capital; and L’Ecole de Droit has been 
described as the magnetic pole towards which the ambition of most 
young French civilians is attracted. In France the bar affords an 
opening to every elevated position, whether administrative, com¬ 
mercial, financial, or legislative. But we do not need the wisdom 
of either the ancient Empire of the East or the modern Empire of 
the West to guide us to the conclusion that efficient tests should 
be established for the purpose of raising the character of the 
acquirements to be possessed by a candidate for the bar, u The 


92 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


profession of tlie law (as Lord Woodhouselee remarks) requires 
an enlarged acquaintance with human nature; an extensive 
knowledge of the various arts which constitute the occupations of 
mankind, and give rise to a great proportion of those legal 
questions which occupy courts of justice;” and general scholar¬ 
ship is at all events as important to the barrister as to the clergy¬ 
man, the physician, the surgeon, the attorney, or the commis¬ 
sioned officer, none of whom can now obtain preferment or 
employment without first passing an examination. 

The Commissioners have directed their attention as well to the 
duty which the several societies owe to the public, as to the 
duties which they owe to the student; and, as regards the latter, 
we find that in 1833 the Inner Temple instituted two lecture¬ 
ships, the attendance on which was voluntary, and which, after 
two years’ trial, were relinquished for want of auditors; and that 
in 1847 the society nevertheless renewed the experiment by 
establishing a lectureship on Common Law; while at the Middle 
Temple lectures were delivered on Jurisprudence and the Civil 
Law; and that in the same year Gray’s Inn established a course 
of lectures, followed by voluntary examinations. In 1851 the 
present system was established. The benchers of each of the 
four inns select two of their body, and the eight benchers form 
the Council of Legal Education, who regulate the lectures and 
classes. They have appointed a Reader on Common Law, a 
Reader on Conveyancing, a Reader on Jurisprudence and Civil 
Law, a Reader on Equity, and a Reader of Constitutional Law 
and Legal History.* Mr. Phillimore, Q.C. the reader on this 
branch, thinks the subjects embraced by his lectures usually 
much neglected, and mentions, by way of illustration, that one 
of the gentlemen who was thought worthy of passing by the 
council had never heard of the Spanish Armada, and that 
another, who was equally ignorant with regard to Lord Cla¬ 
rendon (not Her Majesty’s noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs), 

* It should be mentioned that studentships of fifty guineas a-year are 
tenable for three years by the student who passes the best examination. 
The above-mentioned lectures, examinations, and studentships at present 
constitute the whole system provided by the Inns of Court for the benefit 
of students. 


THE INNS OF COURT. 


93 


was selected some time ago for honourable notice on account of 
professional attainment. 

The question appears to have been much considered by the 
Commissioners, whether there should be a compulsory examina¬ 
tion to test the extent to which students profit by the educational 
provisions which have been made, before a call to the bar. The 
eminent men who fill the offices of Reader are unanimous in 
recommending that examination, and the Commissioners have 
arrived at the same conclusion. They also think that there 
should be a previous examination for the admission to the Inns 
of Court of persons who are not graduates ;* and that the several 
inns should combine to test the general knowledge of candidates 
for admission as students, and the legal knowledge to be required 
as a condition of the call to the bar,—an opinion in which we 
entirely coincide. 

With this view, the Commissioners propose that the four inns 
should be united in a university, each inn, however, preserving 
its independence as a distinct society with regard to property and 
internal arrangements; that the preliminary examination and the 
call-examination be established; and that the conduct of those 
examinations and the conferring of degrees be entrusted to the 
legal university, the governing body of which is to consist of a 
chancellor and senate, to be elected in part by the masters of 
laws, and in part by the barristers. 

The subjects for the examination of candidates for the bar at 
present form two divisions: the first comprising Constitutional 
Law and Legal History, Jurisprudence, and the Roman Civil 
Law; and the second comprising Common Law, Equity, and the 
Law of Real Property. It need hardly be observed that great 
lawyers have acknowledged that much of their proficiency in the 
common law of England is attributable to their early study of 
the Roman Civil Law—that indelible constituent of our composite 
legal fabric. Texts of Roman law, as Professor Maine has very 
truly remarked, have been worked at all points into the founda- 

* “We entirely agree,” say the Commissioners, “that the higher the 
standard of intellectual attainments, of proficiency in general as well as 
technical knowledge required in the barrister, the better it will be for the 
public, the profession, and himself.” 


94 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


tions of our jurisprudence, just as Roman materials have been 
preserved in the fabric of our oldest buildings. In at least one 
subject in each division, the candidate must pass a satisfactory 
examination, but he may offer himself for examination in all the 
subjects of either division for certificate of honour, or in all the 
subjects for the proposed degree of Master of Laws. 

A scheme for legal studies is under consideration at Oxford, 
where there is already a School of Law and Modern History; 
and for the study of the law on the banks of Cam, provisions 
have been recently made by the sister university. Students will 
be at liberty to choose legal honours instead of honours in classics 
or mathematics. 

Thus we may anticipate the time when a course of scientific 
and practical instruction in law T will be provided for the student, 
and when young men of the patrician class shall be encouraged 
to prepare themselves as well for the duties of the legislator and 
magistrate as for the practice of the law, by climbing to the 
Vantage ground of science. 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE IN THE 

MIDDLE AGES. 


A LECTURE. 

[Read to the Members of the Durham Athenaeum; the Newcastle Church 
Institute; and the Church Institute of Chester-le-Street.] 

The military camps and paved highways, altars and votive 
tablets, weapons and productions of art, which are found in every 
part of England, are the monuments which have been left to us 
by the Romans; our language, customs, and national institutions 
preserve the memory of our Saxon forefathers; a thousand local 
names and much of the folk-lore that surrounds us (notwith¬ 
standing all the boasted light and progress of this nineteenth 
century) bear the impress of the once-dreaded sea-kings of Scan¬ 
dinavia; and massive castles, as well as feudal customs and our 
language, mark the dominion of Norman power in England. 
And while every race that has here held military sway has thus 
left its peculiar traces, so the religious dominion of the peaceful 
monks—a power which lasted longer in this country than that of 
the Caesars or the Normans, the Saxons or the Danes—has left to 
us equally characteristic monuments. The manuscripts which are 
treasured in our public libraries, and the productions of antiquity 
preserved by the scribes of the Middle Ages, are the memorials 
of the Monks of the fraternities that were so powerful in England 
during nearly a thousand years, for they had their beginning in 
Ireland before Augustine and the Roman missionaries landed on 
the coast of Kent, and dated in Great Britain from the time 
when, on remote Iona, Christianity set up her earliest temple in 
Scotland. And the monks of old not only built stately churches— 



96 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


edifices some of which arc still our chief temples of religion in 
every county of England, and others of which, though standing 
in lonely ruin, are models of architectural dignity and grace,— 
they also accumulated an inconceivable number of manuscripts, 
of which specimens remain in our cathedral and public libraries 
fair and perfect as when they were penned—their illuminations 
and miniature drawings as bright with gold and colour as when 
the portraits first grew to glittering life. And just as we should 
form a most imperfect idea of the countrymen of Virgil and 
Horace, of Tacitus and Livy, of Csesar and Cicero, if we only 
knew the Romans through the tangible monuments left to us by 
their colonists in this remote part of their dominion, and had not 
found their mental acquisitions treasured in their imperishable 
literature, so, if we had no other remains of the monks than the 
magnificent buildings they raised, we should very inadequately 
appreciate the lives and works of the old monastic fraternities. 
But the great body of manuscripts which have come down to us 
from the Middle Ages bring the monks of old into an undying 
relation to the historical literature of our country and the pre¬ 
servation of ancient learning, and give us a daily and continuing 
interest in what they achieved as annalists and transcribers. 

The elaborate manuscripts that were in many instances the 
work of a life and the pride of an abbey-cloister, place in striking 
contrast with this age of cheap literature and diffused knowledge 
the times when there were no newspapers or printed books, and 
when English was not yet a written language. It has been the 
fashion, therefore, to call those times “ the dark ages,” but the 
want of our means of enlightenment does not justify our regard¬ 
ing as dark ages the mediaeval centuries of the English Church, 
for they are commemorated by manuscripts which shew that during 
the long dominion of the monks the monasteries w T ere retreats of 
learning as well as homes of religion. The labourers of the cloister, 
it is true, knew nothing of those great applications of science which 
mark the present age. They traversed narrow bridle-roads instead 
of railways, and the illuminations they produced were certainly not 
those of gas-light; their countrymen exported no manufactures 
to foreign lands, and England was great without a Liverpool or 
Manchester ; but, while Society was turbulent, the houses of 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


97 


religion maintained the vestal fires of knowledge, and prevented 
the flood of barbarism from again overflowing Europe; and the 
monks raised buildings compared with whose duration most 
other things seem to be shadows, and to which our boastful age 
finds it must still resort for its best architectural models. 

Any person who has seen the manuscript volumes that are 
preserved in the British Museum, in the Bodleian Collection, in 
the College Libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, and in our 
cathedral libraries—and where is the cathedral library that can 
boast manuscripts so venerable as those of the Church of Durham ? 
—has looked upon characteristic monuments of the institutions, 
arts, tenets, and manners of men in bygone centuries, and upon 
authentic sources of our ecclesiastical and literary history. In 
those ancient volumes, written in characters now obsolete, and 
adorned in some instances with decorations in a style of art that 
flourished before the most ancient of our cathedrals rose, we see 
objects that are associated with the history of our religion, our 
literature, and our laws; books that have been studied by saints, 
and cherished by English sovereigns; records that have com¬ 
panioned grave justiciars on the seat of judgment; transcripts of 
classical productions that have delighted many a former owner; 
works of devotion that have cheered many a life, and soothed 
many a departing soul. Of the thousands of manuscripts that 
have come down to us, some few saw the days of the Saxon 
Heptarchy; many are older than any existing cathedral or other 
old fabric in England, and the chief part belong to the reigns of 
the Plantagenets. Their language is generally Latin, their leaves 
are of parchment, and their subjects are for the most part theo¬ 
logical, scientific, and historical. Amongst them we find copies 
of the Bible in full, of the Gospels, and of the Psalms; the 
writings of the fathers and the works of the schoolmen; the 

O 

service-books that were used in celebrating the divine offices, 
treatises on arts and grammar, historical annals and registers, and 
copies of the classical works that were produced in Greece and 
Pome. As to the preservation of the latter, I may remark that 
throughout the history of literature in the Middle Ages we find 
many great ecclesiastics celebrated as preservers of ancient 
learning, and lovers of those classical productions which have 

ii 


98 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


such undying power to refine the taste and develope the highest 
faculties of the mind. In the earlier centuries of the Christian 
Church, her fathers and bishops were students of the literature of 
Greece and Rome, as we find from the preservation of valuable 
fragments of antiquity in the patristic writings; but a change 
came over the taste of churchmen in this respect even before the 
time of Gregory the Great; and in the age of Charlemagne 
classical literature was not cultivated, at all events in his vast 
empire. At that time, indeed, as we learn from Alcuin, Charle- . 
magnets illustrious preceptor, the Kingdom of Northumbria 
cherished monuments of ancient genius and learning that could 
not be found in France. In the twelfth century, however, 
classical literature was diligently cultivated in many parts of 
Europe ; in Italy—especially during the thirteenth century, 
which saw the revival of Poetry bv Dante, and of Painting by 
Cimabue and Giotto—an army of transcribers was employed on 
the works of classical authors. Still, at the commencement of 
the fourteenth century, even the University Library at Oxford 
was very slender, insomuch that scholars were impeded by the 
want of books; and in the University of Paris, unrivalled for 
scholastic theology, only four classical manuscripts then remained 
of the collection which Louis IX. had formed. But in that 
century more than one English bishop possessed a valuable 
library, and in it many copies of classical works; and most of the 
monastic fraternities had a considerable collection of books, which 
they had acquired generally from individual donors, but aug¬ 
mented chiefly by the labours of their own scriptorium (or 
writing-room), for in those ages it was in the monastic houses 
that manuscripts were chiefly transcribed. Even before the 
reign of Henry I. the diocese of Durham could boast a great 
cultivator of letters in William de Carilefe, the Conqueror’s 
Justiciary of England, that magnificent Bishop of Durham who 
founded the present cathedral and built its oldest portions—for 
he was an architect as well as a scholar, a prelate, and a judge— 
who seems to have personally superintended the transcription of 
books for the edification of the Benedictine fraternity of his 
Church, and his example was followed by many succeeding 
bishops—great men those sovereign prelates and princes were! 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


99 


The monks, however, did not merely transcribe the compo¬ 
sitions of ancient authors: several of the learned recluses wrote 
national annals and were the historians of their day. Most 
people read English history, yet few know much about the 
monastic historians from whose writings our histories down to 
the sixteenth century are chiefly derived, and there is no period 
in the kingdoms of the Middle Ages of which the monks have not 
left us some literary monument. Our oldest British historian 
wrote in the age when St. Augustine was converting the Anglo- 
Saxons; the Venerable Bede composed his imperishable works at 
Jarrow long before the good Alfred was born ; and the other 
principal writers of history lived between the time of the Norman 
Conquest and the brilliant reign of, Edward III. Learned monks 
were peacefully accumulating materials of English history while 
Norman princes were establishing their power in England, while 
her noblest sons were fighting in the Crusades, while the realm 
was agitated by all the contests of Henry II.’s reign, while 
Richard of the Lion Heart was in Palestine, while the barons 
were gaining Magna Carta from King John and fighting for our 
liberties with his son. Matthew Paris, the monk of St. Alban’s, 
who was so judicious and fearless an historian of British affairs, 
was writing his great history during the confusions of the civil 
war in the reign of Henry III., and other monks were writing 
their historical or theological works while the victorious Edward 
was leading campaigns against the Scots, and while our Parlia¬ 
ment was acquiring its present form and constitution. So that 
through many centuries the agitations of the world did not 
suspend the literary labours of the cloister; and here it may be 
interesting if we glance briefly at the principal historians of 
English affairs, whose works have come down upon the stream of 
time. 

The oldest British historian whose writings are known to us is 
Gildas—a gray, almost mythic, father of the British Church, who 
is said to have been a monk of Bangor, and to have died in 
Glastonbury Abbey about the year 570—which was half a 
century before King Edwin of Northumbria was converted to the 
Christian faith. In the two following centuries religion and 
letters seem to have found, in this Northumbrian kingdom their 

h 2 


100 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


chief abode. Neither Newcastle nor Durham then existed; but 
Lindisfarne and Hexham, Tynemouth and Jarrow were centres of 
sanctity and learning; and from the monastery at Jarrow which 
was united with that of St. Peter at Monkwearmouth, under the 
government of Abbot Benedict a noble native of this part of 
England—the light of learning shone throughout the western 
world. There the immortal Bede, whom admiring ages entitled 
the Venerable, wrote the first authentic annals of the English 
Church and people, and no fewer than thirty-six other works, 
the Cologne edition of which fills eight folio volumes. During 
the lifetime of Bede (who died in 735), and through the 
remainder of the eighth century, learning seems to have been 
pre-eminently cultivated in the kingdom of Northumbria. At 
York, its ancient capital, Archbishop Egbert, the friend of Bede, 
founded a noble library, which lie, doubtless, furnished from 
Rome ; and at York he educated the illustrious Alcuin, also a 
Northumbrian, who became tbe most learned man of his age ; 
and when Alcuin, then Abbot of Tours, was founding, at the 
request of Charlemagne, a school of learning in that city, he sent 
envoys to York for copies of various works which could not be 
obtained in France ; for at York, as he himself tells us, were 
preserved “monuments of the ancient fathers, works which were 
produced by the Romans themselves, and works which were 
transmitted to them from the glorious land of Greece, truths 
received by the Hebrew nation from above, which Africa, 
receiving their pure light, has diligently extended.” Alcuin here 
refers, doubtless, to the ancient Christian cities that flourished on 
the Mediterranean shores of Africa, and especially on the Alge¬ 
rian coast ennobled by the great name of Augustine, Bishop of 
Hippo, where , he wrote those precious manuscripts that have for 
centuries instructed Christians; so that, whereas missionary enter¬ 
prise now flows from England for the deliverance of that vast 
continent from a second heathen darkness, European Christendom 
in early centuries of the Christian Church received prelates and 
doctrine from Africa. The good Alcuin, when obtaining per¬ 
mission to transplant what he called the flowers of Britain, “so 
that their fragrance might no longer be confined to York, but 
might perfume the palaces of Tours,” sought to raise a new 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


101 


Athens in France, higher than the ancient city of the purple 
crown in as much as the wisdom of Christ transcends the philo- 
sopliy of Plato; and his conviction of the importance of know¬ 
ledge, which, he says, “exalts the low and adds lustre to the 
honours of the great,” was shared by Charlemagne, who was 
zealous for the advancement of learning. The emperor himself 
took great pains, though in vain, to acquire some facility in 
writing; hut the princesses, his daughters, appear to have been 
more accomplished, and to have been fond of putting formidable 
questions to Alcuin in philosophy and theology. Speaking of 
Charlemagne’s time, I may mention that a monastic fraternity 
obtained his leave to hunt deer in one of the royal forests, “to 
the end,” as they suggested, “ that they might convert the skins 
into covers for their books;” but the shrewd brethren seem to 
have wanted something more than the skins, for they represented 
that venison was “ good for sick monks.” The scarcity and cost¬ 
liness of writing-materials in that age confined the transcription 
of books to the richer monasteries only, and the royal library 
itself was but scantily furnished. Charlemagne’s successor, Louis 
the Pious, was known as a lover of learning, and his brother 
emperor, Michael of Byzantium, sent him a work in Greek; but 
the work seems to have been of little use in France until some 
years afterwards, when it was translated into Latin at the 
command of Charles the Bald (who succeeded Louis as King of 
France). But even for that service the French king was indebted 
to a learned native of Ireland—John surnamed Erigena, who was 
in that age a miracle of Greek scholarship; and this very book 
became the source of many of the mystical and speculative 
notions of the Middle Ages. 

But to revert to England. During more than two centuries 
from the time of Bede few monks are found to have kept alive 
the lamp of learning that he had maintained so brightly; but 
native prelates in the ninth century continued the Saxon annals, 
and the immortal Alfred translated the Psalms of David, the 
Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and other works, from the Latin 
into his mother-tongue. In the following century the name of 
St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury—that wonderful scholar, 
monk, and statesman, who was the Wolsey of his day—and 


102 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


St. Ethelwold, the good Bishop of Winchester, irradiate the 
scanty annals of learning and genius ; but they almost stand 
alone as far as regards this country. No rays of learning are 
reflected to us from the first half of the eleventh century (at the 
beginning of which, it will be remembered, Canute was reigning 
at Winchester as King of England); but in the latter half of that 
century, when the crown of St. Edward had passed to AYilliam 
Duke of Normandy, Ingulfus, a native scholar and historian, 
flourished in England. The Conqueror made Ingulfus his secre¬ 
tary and Abbat of Croyland. About fifty years after the establish¬ 
ment of the Norman power, Ailred of Rievaulx, a great York¬ 
shire abbat, wrote a life of the royal saint of England, Edward 
the Confessor; and from that time the writers of histories, annals, 
and biographies, became very numerous. Nearly contemporary 
with Ingulfus was Florence of Worcester, a Benedictine monk of 
that city, who diligently compiled a general history, which he 
was not content to begin at a less remote period than the time of 
Adam. I may here mention that a very celebrated personage in 
Border history during the Stuart reigns—that picturesque old 
chieftain Lord William Howard, the “ Belted Will ” of Scott— 
connected his love of literature with the name of Florence of 
Worcester by editing his Chronicle. Memorials of public affairs 
from William the Conqueror to Henry I. were written by Eadmer, 
a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, and were edited by the 
learned Selden. Then came the celebrated William of Malmes¬ 
bury, monk and librarian of the once great abbey of that place, a 
faithful and judicious writer of English history from the coming 
of the Saxons to the year 1126. A new edition of his work was 
recently published. When Malmesbury wrote, the church of 
Durham was advancing in riches and fame ; learned men were 
already cherished in its cloister; and the names of Symeon, 
Turgot, and Reginald reflect lustre on the Benedictine fraternity 
of Durham. With honesty and purity of intention these men 
wrote: they praised the virtuous and reproved the vicious, 
without regard to rank or to the judgment of men; they did not 
aim at graces of style or to win reputation for themselves, and 
little could they have anticipated that the printing-press would 
spread copies of their writings before the proud tribunal of the 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


103 


world. And it was not at Durham only that writers of history 
flourished in the North of Engdand, for in the reign of Henry II. 
Richard, Prior of Hexham, wrote memoirs of the reign of 
Stephen, and Roger de Howden, a Yorkshire monk, who was 
chaplain to Henry II., and was skilled in the laws of England, 
wrote his well-known annals (edited by Sir Henry Savile), which 
begin where Venerable Bede’s history ended, and extend to the end 
of the reign of Richard. I will pass over the less eminent suc¬ 
cessors of these early English historians, and will next mention 
Roger de Wendover, whose work forms a history of England for 
eight centuries down to 1235, and who was gathering his 
“ Flowers of History ” in foreign as well as native gardens, while 
Marco Polo was arousing Western Europe by glowing accounts 
of Indian riches ; while the Christian Empire of the East was 
still flourishing at Constantinople; while the Moors were still 
reigning in part of Spain ; and while the military monks of the 
Temple were still lords of Palestine. Like many other of the 
monastic historians, this humble monk of St. Alban’s wrote as if 
he acknowledged with the dignified Tacitus of Rome, that it is 
the historian’s province to re-judge the conduct of men, to the 
end that virtuous actions may be commemorated, and that shame 
may await the evil-doer at the tribunal of posterity ; and he felt 
the dignity of history in being (as Cicero says) the witness of 
ages, the herald of antiquity, the soul of memory, and the light 
of truth. How different has been the conduct of a popular and 
brilliant writer of our own day, who has given us the pleading of 
an advocate rather than the exposition of a judge, and has per¬ 
verted history to exalt the idol of his prejudice and partiality! 
The thirteenth century produced also a still more famous writer— 
I mean Matthew Paris, monk of St. Alban’s, who was an orator, 
logician, and lover of the arts, a theologian, monastic reformer, 
and historian of national affairs. I must not pass by the succeed- 
ing writers of history in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. 
without making honourable mention of Matthew of Westminster, 
a monk of the royal abbey there. He wrote “ Flowers of 
History,” a work which begins at the Creation and comes down 
to 1307. The reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. had also 
* their annalists in the cloister ; and in that fourteenth century 


104 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


Durham could boast three accurate and faithful historians of the 
affairs of the diocese. Although the civil wars convulsed England 
in the following century, the lamp of learning shone in many an 
English cloister, and there were several writers of history in the 
days of the Lancastrian kings. The diligent, learned, and vene¬ 
rable John of Whethamstede, who was Prior of Tynemouth and 
subsequently Abbat of St. Alban’s, is, perhaps, the most con¬ 
spicuous of these annalists of the cloister : he was writing his 
chronicles while Henry V. was gaining the field of Agincourt 
and while Henry VI. was contending with his foes at home; but 
the wars of York and Lancaster seem to have put an end to the 
labours of the monastic historians as far as regards national affairs. 

Almost every conventual fraternity, however,, kept its own 
annals—a custom which ascends to much higher antiquity than 
the time to which I am referring—and these registers were con¬ 
tinued down to the time of the dissolution of monasteries by 
Henry VIII. The chronicle written in the abbey of Bury 
St. Edmund’s, in the reign of Richard I., and recently published 
in a popular form, is a well-known example of these conventual 
registers. Many of them are now extant in public collections 
and private hands; and where the monastery in which they were 
written was connected with the cathedral church, as in the case 
of Durham, they afford authentic materials for the history of the 
church and diocese to which they belong, and their authority 
and importance are always recognised. The writers, moreover, 
were fond of recording anecdotes, and these frequently afford cha¬ 
racteristic illustrations of the moral and social condition of the 
people at the time, or furnish curious information with regard to 
great men and public events; indeed, we often find in monkish 
chronicles a quaint relation of such occurrences as would now be 
published in newspapers. Thus, in the Chronicle of Lanercost, 
for example, amid the relation of political affairs, we have a story 
which affords a striking picture of the simple manners of the 
Scotish court six hundred years ago under Queen Margaret, an 
English princess ; and the monks noticed not only remarkable 
actions of men, but the appearance of comets, meteors, and other 
natural phenomena, which seem to have been regarded by the 
brethren as portentous of evil. In chronicles written by monks * 



IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


105 


in England and on tlie continent we have notices, for example, 
of tliat brilliant comet of tlie year 1264, which, from a compari¬ 
son of the elements of its orbit with those of the comet of 1556, 
sometimes called the comet of Charles V., has been supposed to 
be identical with that alarming visitant, and has been for some 
time past expected to re-appear after another interval of nearly 
three hundred years. 

From this very brief review of works of which monks were 
the authors, I will now pass to describe some of the most 
remarkable of those which they collected and transcribed. 
Transcripts of the Holy Scriptures were their earliest produc¬ 
tions. Perhaps the first books brought into England from the 
time of the conversion of the Ansdo-Saxons were the MSS. 

O 

which Pope Gregory the Great sent to Augustine. These were, 
a Bible which had purple and rose-coloured leaves, a Psalter, 
two copies of the Gospels, Legends of the Martyrdom of Apostles, 
and Commentaries on the Epistles and Gospels. Some of these 
books had on the covers thin plates of gold and silver with 
jewels. In the library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 
and in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, two ancient manuscripts 
of the Gospels still exist, which, according to Professor Stanley, 
have a fair claim to be considered the very books which Gregory 
sent to Augustine. If so, they are probably the first books that 
were ever read in England—the beginning, indeed, of English 
literature and of English instruction; books that first came to 
our shores when Cambridge was a desolate fen, and Oxford a 
forest surrounded by a waste of waters. Copies of the books 
brought by later Roman missionaries soon came to be multiplied 
in the monasteries from royal Canterbury to remote Lindisfarne, 
and a few of these venerable manuscripts still exist. In the 
Chapter Library at Durham there is a copy of the New Testa¬ 
ment which may have belonged to St. Cuthbert; and his Book 
of the Gospels is one of the most celebrated curiosities of the 
Cottonian Library iir tlie British Museum. I must say a few 
words about this book. It was written for St. Cuthbert’s use by 
Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne (who died in 721), and was 
elaborately illuminated by Ethelwold, his successor, and covered 
with gold and silver. When the monks fled from Lindisfarne, it 


106 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


became the companion of their celebrated travels; but, having 
fallen into the sea during their attempt to reach Ireland, and 
having soon afterwards been found in safety on the Scotch coast, 
it accompanied the monks through their residence at Chester-le- 
Street and all their wanderings, until the year 1104, when it 
returned to Lindisfarne, its original home, where a colony of 
Durham Benedictines had built, upon the site of the original 
cathedral, the “dark red pile” of which so many interesting 
portions remain. The book can still boast its brilliant illumina¬ 
tions and its beautiful manuscript, and is remarkable besides for 
the Dano-Saxon version which the Surtees Society has recently 
published—a great philological curiosity, no doubt, but we may 
rejoice that no such language is now spoken in this part of the 
country. Then in the Chapter Library at Durham there is 
another book, a manuscript of the Four Gospels, a portion of 
which, for reasons explained by the Rev. James Raine the 
learned librarian, is believed to be in the handwriting of Vene¬ 
rable Bede himself. There is also a Saxon copy of the Four 
Evangelists, which King Athelstan gave to the monks who had 
not long before found upon the wooded hill of Durham a final 
resting-place for their mighty saint, and were there erecting their 
then humble church. In the same Chapter Library, too, there is 
a magnificent Norman manuscript of the Bible, written by order 
of the great prelate-architect Bishop de Carilefe. Again, in the 
library of the British Museum there is now preserved a copy of 
the Gospels, in Latin, which, there is little doubt, is the book 
that was sent over to King Athelstan by his brother-in-law, the 
Emperor Otho, between the years 936 and 940, and which was 
given by Athelstan to the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury. 
This venerable manuscript has been looked upon as the only 
undoubted relic of the Anglo-Saxon regalia in England. I 
might mention many other manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, 
dating from Anglo-Saxon times, the decorations of which mark 
not only the taste of the illuminator but the reverence of the 
Christian possessor; and they afford conclusive proof that in every 
age of the Anglo-Saxon Church the Gospels were transcribed and 
reverenced by the monks. So, too, from the landing of William 
the Conqueror, which gave us our Norman aristocracy, down to 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


107 


the invention which gave us the printing-press, portions of Holy 
Scripture, and even whole Bibles, were diligently transcribed and 
multiplied in the monasteries, for the monks held that a monas¬ 
tery without a library was like a castle without munitions of 
defence, and that the Bible was the chief strength of all. 

The labour of transcribing was, of course, divided where a 
monastery had several competent penmen; but in some instances 
a copy was wholly produced by one scribe, who devoted almost a 
life-period to the work. For instance, there is a manuscript of 
the Bible in which the scribe, who was a contemporary of 
Edward I. has recorded that he was fifty years in writing it. 
We therefore need not wonder at the high price of manuscripts 
in the Middle Ages, or that broad acres were in some instances 
exchanged for a MS. adorned with illuminations. The scarcity 
of writing-materials in days when books were written on parch¬ 
ment was of course another cause of their high price, and it often 
led to the destruction of more ancient manuscripts. Thus, for 
example, a monastic scribe in the days of the Plantagenets wrote 
on leaves that had borne the manuscript of Norman or earlier 
times, and obliterated, perhaps, some valuable fragment of former 
days to adapt the parchment to his purpose. 

Commentaries on various books of Holy Scripture were 
numerous in monastic libraries, but the greater portion of the 
contents of these collections was made up of lives of saints, 
writings of the fathers, and works of the schoolmen of the 
Middle Ages. The portentous mass of departed learning known 
as the scholastic philosophy having passed into desuetude we are 
accustomed to form a low estimate of the value of the schoolmen’s 
lore, and of the utility of those abstract reasonings by which the 
principles of natural theology were sought to be established; and 
our public libraries, containing, as they do, many volumes of the 
scholastic subtleties, have been called cemeteries ol departed 
reputations; while the dust accumulating upon their untouched 
manuscripts has been compared in its moral to the grass that 
waves over the ruins of Babylon. 

Let me now advert to that other great body of literature 
which occupied the pens of monastic transcribers—I mean the 
writings of classical antiquity. We no sooner look at a catalogue 


108 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


of the manuscripts which formerly belonged to a monastic foun¬ 
dation, than we see that the monks well knew how to value those 
great works of imagination and genius which have become 
models for the literature of every civilised tongue. The influ¬ 
ence of the language and literature thus perpetuated by the 
monks cannot be overrated: it has been truly said that the 
largest and most solid foundation-stones of those languages 
which now stand as the open temples of all human thought were 
hewn out of the classic rocks: it was Virgil—poet and magician 
—who led Dante his wondrous course; and the subtleties of 
Rabelais are woven out of the Latinity of the cloister. It may 
be interesting to mention here that, as regards the monks of 
Durham, those authors of antiquity were much sought after who 
had exercised the art of rhetoric at Rome, or studied in the 
schools of Athenian oratory. They were among the classics that 
earliest attracted the attention of the monastic scribes; and the 
Benedictines of Durham added to their collection many works 
on logic, rhetoric, and philosophy. Cicero was undoubtedly a 
favourite in the abbeys of England; and it appears that English 
monks did not sympathise with the asceticism of Spanish zealots 
in a later age with regard to heathen or profane compositions. 
The monks of Durham seem, moreover, to have had very good 
taste in classical literature; for we find them in possession of the 
works of Virgil, of some of the poems of Ovid, the comedies of 
Terence, the satires of Juvenal, and some of the poems of Horace. 
In many a cloister, Valerius Maximus seems to have been a 
favourite classic with the monks, and his Memorable Sayings and 
Doings is the work that probably afforded the model upon which 
a French Benedictine prior—who would no doubt have greatly 
enjoyed the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments —compiled, five 
hundred years ago, for the use of monastic societies, that 
favourite collection of religious, legendary, and romantic narra¬ 
tives known as the Gesta JRomanorum. From this work the 
monks often drew illustrations for their sermons, and in it we 
find the oriental source of many of the tales and incidents 
immortalised by English poets. Several stories in this remark¬ 
able collection contain striking traces of eastern imagination, and 
some of the apologues are said to be found in Arabian writers of 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


109 


tlie tenth and even the eighth century. A religious tale, written 
m Greek more than a thousand years ago by a monk known as 
John of Damascus, seems to have suggested the device of the 
caskets in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice; and there, too, we 
find the story of the young prince who, by the advice of his 
physician, was kept in a dark chamber until he was of the age of 
twelve years, and who, being then allowed for the first time to 
look upon his fellow-creatures and behold the riches of the world, 
was pleased the most by the appearance of the women, and being 
informed by his attendant, when he inquired what those fair 
objects were, that they were devils who catch men, said, when 
brought to his father and asked which he liked best of all the 
fine things he had seen, that he liked best “ the devils who catch 
men.” It is worthy ol remark that the Western literature, and 
especially the romance literature of the Middle Ages, if not 
actually derived from that of the East, was largely indebted to 
it, and, during the Crusades especially, was augmented from 
oriental sources. 

But, excepting such tales as these, and the monastic narratives 
of public events, and the classical authors whose works were 
copied by the monastic scribes—works which, if they were in an 
English form, might be read with as much interest in our 
popular libraries at the present day as they excited in the 
cloister—the contents of an old monastic library would now 
have little charm for the members of a literary institution; for 
there were many books on Roman and canon law in most of 
the monastic libraries, besides the formidable and repulsive works 
on theology, philosophy, and grammar to which I have adverted. 
As regards, however, the Institutes of Justinian, with the Com¬ 
mentaries and Decretals, and the Treatises of Doctors on Canon 
Law, it must be remembered that such works were formerly of 
great practical value. For many reigns after the Conquest, our 
chancellors, chief justices, and judges were of the clerical order, 
and our early clerical chancellors seem to have been proficients 
in the great and enduring system of the Roman jurisprudence, 
and to have been guided by this immortal collection of the 
wisdom of former ages in the endeavours they made to ameliorate 
the rude legislation of England. Time and changes of opinion 


110 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


have not robbed all these manuscripts of their value, and honour 
is due to the memory of the monks of Durham for their industry 
in collecting and transcribing them. 

I must now proceed from the subjects of monastic manuscripts 
to advert to their illuminations—the tasteful, quaint, elaborate 
ornaments with which many of the manuscripts are decorated, 
and in this respect the labours of the cloister have a living 
interest for every age. These illuminations may be said to afford 
pictorial illustration of the arts and costumes, manners and 
customs, of the time and country in which they were executed. 
There are several manuscripts—such, for instance, as the Psalter 
that belonged to Canute, and the Benedictional of St. Ethelwold 
(now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, and about 
which alone a book was written,)—that bring vividly before us 
the dresses and occupations of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. 
Many Norman manuscripts, too, are adorned by magnificent 
illuminations which the monks were executing while Crusaders 
were fighting in Palestine, and fair hands were working in the 
Bayeux tapestry other characteristic features of the time. In 
artistic skill, the illuminations of the middle and latter part of 
the thirteenth century are hardly equal to those of the twelfth 
century; they are less correct in outline, and less spirited, but 
they are more elaborately and richly coloured. Ornamental 
design was then becoming very varied and fantastic; and the 
styles of drawing are unequal in the manuscripts of this period, 
during which, as will be remembered, Giotto was reviving in 
Italy the art of Painting. Events and persons, from Holy Scrip¬ 
ture or saintly legend, form most of the subjects represented in 
the miniatures with which the monks enriched their manuscripts. 
Generally, the drawings are contained within an initial letter at 
the beginning of a page; and often we find them quaint, and full 
of satirical humour; but the illuminators, like great painters in a 
later age, sometimes committed strange anachronisms by repre¬ 
senting historical personages of one period in the dresses of 
another; and these incongruities are often somewhat amusing. 
The illuminators, as well as the “ writers,” “ correctors,” and 
“ binders ” of manuscripts, worked in the apartment called the 
Scriptorium, which was maintained in every abbey, and for the 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


Ill 


maintenance of which estates were, in many instances, appro¬ 
priated. In the great monasteries the professed transcribers and 
illuminators of books found their most constant patrons, and from 
the scriptorium of a convent nobles and prelates were accustomed 
to obtain the manuscripts they desired to possess, as people now 
obtain their books from Albemarle Street or Paternoster Row. 
But, as illuminated manuscripts, especially those of a devotional 
character, were highly valued, and kings and nobles were always 
desirous to possess manuscripts enriched by illuminations, there 
were English artists who could be engaged for the purpose of 
illuminating books. The household account of the good queen 
Eleanor affords an example that this was the case as early as the 
reign of Edward I., and many instances of their employment 
might be given. Every one knows what stately and magnificent 
monuments were raised by pious munificence and architectural 
skill in the reigns of the Plantagenets ; and it is very interesting 
to an Englishman to find, when he investigates the state of the 
fine arts in England during those ages, that Painting, as applied 
to the representation of subjects on the walls of churches and 
palaces, was successfully practised in this country contempo¬ 
raneously with the restoration of the art by Cimabue in Italy 
during the latter half of the thirteenth century. Henry IIP was 
the first English sovereign who encouraged the arts of Archi¬ 
tecture, Painting, and Sculpture; and by him, as well as by 
Edward I., the professors of those arts were employed in deco¬ 
rating palaces, and in executing royal monuments in abbey 
churches. It was not only painters in fresco, sculptors, and 
artists in metal-work and other branches of decorative art, who 
found abundant employment on the noble edifices built, enlarged, 
or adorned in the reigns of the Plantagenets ; for in the transcrip¬ 
tion and illumination of service-books for the altar and the choir 
enormous sums of money were expended, and the piety and taste 
of individuals increased the demand for illuminated books of 
•devotion. Although many bishops were celebrated in those days 
for their love of learning, I know of only one who actually 
maintained in his own palace a staff of transcribers and illumi¬ 
nators—that one was Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, an 
illustrious ornament of the reign of Edward IIP, whom he served 


112 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


as lord chancellor and chief minister of state. His great power 
and wealth, and his frequent visits as ambassador from his royal 
friend to the chief courts of Christendom, gave him opportunities 
for acquiring books, of which he profited largely; he seems occa¬ 
sionally to have spent a sum equivalent to 20,000/. of our money 
on the expenses of an embassy, a great part of which expenditure 
went in buying books, and he generally returned enriched with 
manuscripts acquired in Paris or in foreign convents. At Auck¬ 
land Castle, the ancient, wood-environed palace of the Bishops of 
Durham, Richard de Bury maintained a staff of transcribers, 
correctors, illuminators, and binders of books; the very floors of 
his presence-chamber and other apartments were covered with 
books, and in his sleeping-room we are told it was difficult 
to move without treading upon a book ; and this, we must 
remember, was nearly a hundred and fifty years before the 
invention of printing, and was a time when the English nobility 
were unlettered, when few of the halls of our universities had 
been founded, when ecclesiastics and lawyers were the only 
persons who had any pretensions to learning, and when Norman- 
French was the language of Westminster Hall; when bishops 
could not move from place to place in England without a large 
retinue bearing arms and furniture and provisions; when Durham 
and Newcastle were walled cities, occasionally approached by the 
hostile Scots, and when England and Scotland were continually 
at war ! But I said that the great monasteries were pre¬ 
eminently the seats of learning, and the places in which the 
transcribers and illuminators of manuscripts found their chief 
employment. Several of the monastic libraries contained many 
hundreds of books, and an abbat was, frequently, ambitious to 
mark his reign by the number of volumes which he had caused 
to be added to the conventual library. Thus—to give an 
instance from the Norman times—an abbat of St. Alban’s 
borrowed of Archbishop Lanfranc twenty-eight choice works, of 
which he caused copies to be made; for Lanfranc—like the great* 
Durham Bishop, William de Carilefe, his contemporary—was a 
diligent preserver of learning; indeed that great archbishop with 
Ingulfus and Anselm of Canterbury form a constellation of 
genius, and were the great literary triumvirate of their age. The 



IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


113 


Abbey of Croyland, too, had acquired more than three hundred 
manuscripts before the accession of William Rufus, and Glaston- 
bury, in the time of Edward L, could boast more than four 
hundred manuscripts in its library. Although the monasteries 
for the most part grew richer as years rolled on, yet it does not 
appear that their diligence in copying and acquiring books was 
at all relaxed. In the library of Peterborough there were, at the 
dissolution of religious houses, seventeen hundred books; and 
from the catalogues of their libraries which were made by the 
monks of several other great English monasteries, it appears that 
they had accumulated, before that event, manuscripts varying in 
number from five hundred to two thousand. These are facts 
which shew that the monks rightly regarded books: that they 
knew them to be comforters in sorrow—companions in solitude 
—guides to truth ; and knew what a glorious thing a great 
library is, what a mine of treasure, what a never-failing 
fountain of human intellect! Remembering that a few centuries 
ago five hundred or six hundred manuscripts were thought a 
great library, we may think of the wonder with which the monks 
would have regarded such libraries as we now have access to— 
libraries containing even hundreds of thousands of volumes, and 
such ceaseless activity of authors with such boundless production 
by the press. 

Without entering into details so archaeological as statistics 
of the chief national libraries in the Middle Ages, I may say a 
few words about the Vatican Library. It was to the solicitude 
of great fathers and bishops in the early centuries of the Church, 
that this stupendous collection owed its rise—a library which, after 
Rome had given Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons, afforded the 
vestal fires of learning to her remote disciples. There is not any 
trace of a papal library before the time of St. Hilary, about the 
year 470; but in the sixth century a librarian of the apostolical 
library is mentioned, and from that time it Avas preserved. Con¬ 
stantinople, however, in the days of the Greek emperors, could 
boast of the greatest collection of books, and was, indeed, the 
principal seat of learning. I have already mentioned the Greek 
manuscript which was sent from the East to the successor of 
Charlemagne as the offering of a brother emperor, and from 

i 


114 


HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE 


Constantinople manuscripts had previously found their way to 
the then rising library at Rome. From that Roman library some 
of the earliest literary treasures of the Anglo-Saxon Church were 
derived by the great Archbishop Theodore, who from his native 
Tarsus, in Cilicia, came to Canterbury, and afterwards invited 
St. Cuthbert from his island hermitage. From that storehouse of 
letters, too, Egbert Archbishop of York founded the library of 
his metropolitan city. During the vicissitudes of later ages the 
Roman library is not mentioned; but it had been revived before 
the time of Pope Clement V., who took the literary treasures of 
Rome to Avignon, when he removed the Holy See to the castel¬ 
lated heights upon the Rhone; and the manuscripts which were 
brought back to Rome in 1417, by Pope Martin V., seem to 
have become the nucleus of the great Vatican library, which has 
ever since been augmented from all parts of Christendom. Many 
manuscripts were brought to Europe from the East during the 
Middle Ages—the spoils, doubtless, of the once great library of 
Constantinople; and an immense number are still hid in monas¬ 
teries of Syria and the Levant, some valuable specimens of which 
have been acquired in recent years by enterprising and learned 
travellers, and have been deposited chiefly in the British Museum. 
Of the National Library at Paris St. Louis is considered to have 
been the founder; but the good monarch probably never antici¬ 
pated that the object of his care would come to contain, as it now 
does, a hundred thousand manuscripts alone. It is worthy of 
mention, as showing the number of books which had been col¬ 
lected by the French king in the days of Agincourt, that the 
English, after the victories of Henry V., carried away from Paris 
more than eight hundred volumes from the collection which 
Charles V. of France had formed. Perhaps, at that period, no 
individual collector in England possessed a larger collection of 
manuscripts than Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who, when he 
refounded,-in the year 1440, the public library of the university 
of Oxford, gave to it six hundred manuscripts, which are stated 
to have been of extraordinary value. Less than a century had 
then elapsed since the time when Bishop Richard de Bury 
bequeathed his enormous collection for the purpose of founding a 
public library for the students at Oxford; but such had been the 


IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 


115 


agitations of the intervening time, that the bishop’s noble foun¬ 
dation lay waste and desolate when the good Duke of Gloucester 
undertook its revival. His enlightened provisions were in their 
turn defeated by the storms of the Reformation; so that when 
Sir Thomas Bodley, towards the close of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, 
devoted his energies and fortune to re-instate the public library 
of Oxford, and for that purpose diligently sought after and pur¬ 
chased books and manuscripts, the noble collections of the earlier 
founders had been for the most part scattered. Bodley accumu¬ 
lated nearly thirteen hundred rare manuscripts, chiefly the 
laboured and costly productions of the cloister, which the dissolu¬ 
tion of religious houses had dispersed. So, too, Sir Robert Cotton 
founded the magnificent collection of manuscripts, all spoils of 
the monasteries, which long after his death was transferred to the 
British Museum, and there, bearing his name, happily remains. 
We are not to suppose, because there were few such collectors 
before the invention of printing, that there were not many noble¬ 
men and ecclesiastics who were distinguished by their taste for 
literature and their desire to possess manuscripts. Many a book 
of devotional offices, now the priceless gem of a public library, 
once belonged to some heroine of history; we find classics and 
romance poetry in the library of a nobleman who lived under 
Lancastrian kings; and even Chaucer represents the clerk who 
was the fifth husband of the Wife of Bath as possessing Ovid’s 
“ Art of Love,” and other works of classical antiquity. Litera¬ 
ture having been preserved by the monks in the days “ when 
Rome was all prevailing,” such of their long-hoarded volumes as 
escaped the destroyers at the time of the dissolution of monas¬ 
teries passed into private hands, and were rescued by the taste 
and munificence of a Bodley, a Cotton, or a Howard, to find a 
secure home in our public libraries. Great as is the number of 
our manuscript treasures, they must bear but a small proportion 
to the number of manuscripts that were existing in this country 
in the reign of Henry VIII., whose reforming visitors barbarously 
destroyed and scattered the contents of monastic libraries, sold 
illuminated manuscripts by the cartload, and dispersed them 
over the neighbourhood to heat ovens, patch windows, and be 
cut up by the tailor and the bookbinder. For many of the 

i 2 


116 HISTORIANS AND LITERATURE IN TIIE MIDDLE AGES. 

treasures of antiquity that have come clown to us in a printed 
form we are likewise indebted to the monastic preservers of 
learning, the works having become known to the learned in the 
early days of printing, and having thus been consigned to the 
immortal custody of the press ; and numerous printed books of 
early date which belonged to priors and monks remain to evince 
their attachment to literature, and the welcome they gave to 
printing. The legends of saints, which had been for centuries 
favourite reading in the monasteries, thus came to be household 
books of our sturdy ancestors, and found their way into the 
scanty library of many a country gentleman. 

If this lecture had not already reached its prescribed limits, I 
should have liked to give some examples of the enormous value 
that was anciently set upon manuscripts—it is curious to contrast 
with it the cheapness of printed books. But I must now 
conclude. I have endeavoured to give some idea of what the 
monks accomplished as annalists and transcribers: it is painful to 
think what destroyers in the sixteenth century barbarously did to 
obliterate the labours of a thousand years ; but when we review 
all the destructive agencies of which we read in history, and 
behold in ruin even the massive walls within which the manu¬ 
scripts were written, ,we may well rejoice that so many of these 
treasures have been “ sheltered under the wings of Time,” and 
that we can find in our noble public libraries such long-trans¬ 
mitted witnesses for the classic productions of ancient genius and 
for the Scriptures of our faith. Although we may disregard the 
devotional and legendary writings of the cloister, and renounce 
the austere, unattractive paths through which the monks aspired 
to reach the joys of heaven, we should remember the discrimina¬ 
tion and the industry which preserved to us what we prize so 
highly and kept alive the lamp of history through dark and 
troubled years. And as the navigator finds on distant shores 
names that tell how England’s gallant seamen of former days 
have bravely toiled in the great cause of human advancement, so 
the student of letters and history sees in these mediaeval monu¬ 
ments of learned enterprise landmarks raised by the monastic 
pioneers of human knowledge, and gratefully recognises their 
enlightened diligence and love of science. 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY.* 


[Colburn’s “New Monthly Magazine,” June, 1857.] 

Mr. Froude’s volumes embrace a most important and interest¬ 
ing period of English history, for in those already published he 
treats of the grave momentous occurrences between the accession 
of the House of Tudor and the time when Henry VIII. assumed 
the title of Supreme Head on Earth of the English Church. 
The work is remarkable no less than the period it embraces, for 
it seems designed to justify many of those atrocities of his ensan¬ 
guined reign which have excited the horror and detestation of 
posterity; and to persuade us that the Nero of the Tudor race 
has been unjustly calumniated, that he was not so bad as histo¬ 
rians have represented him, and that some of the worst acts of 
his selfish, capricious, and cruel tyranny were dictated by 
patriotism and a sense of duty. The book professes to found this 
justification upon unpublished documents found amongst the 
Public Records, and thus to throw their authority over the 
representations of the historian. 

Some people, whose views are darkened by the haze of Exeter 
Hall, and who seem to think the Reformation and the Protestant 
cause identified with the character of Henry VIII., and strength¬ 
ened by its vindication, received Mr. Froude’s book so exultingly 
that we took it up with the expectation of finding that some 
documents hitherto unknown had been discovered among the 

* History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Eliza¬ 
beth. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. London: J. W. Parker and 
Son. 1856. Two vols. 



118 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Public Records, by which a new light was thrown upon Henry’s 
character and the acts of his reign. Mr. Froude mentions in his 
preface the discovery by Sir Francis Palgrave, among the Public 
Records preserved in the Rolls House, of a large number of 
documents relating to the opening years of the English Reforma¬ 
tion, which had not been published, many of which are highly 
illustrative and curious, and contain matters hitherto unknown, 
and are intended to be published by Mr. Froude, who meantime 
only refers to them as “ MSS. in the Rolls House.” Mr. Froude 
elsewhere propounds, that to the statutes of Henry’s reign and to 
these original state papers we must look, if we would form a just 
estimate of his character and policy; and he lays down as a 
principle that u facts which are stated in an act of parliament 
may be uniformly trusted.” (!) Now, although Mr. Froude is 
not by any means the first historic inquirer who has recognised 
the authenticity and importance of the Public Records as mate¬ 
rials for history, he seems entitled to the distinction of originality 
in being the first writer who has been so perverse as to draw 
from them any conclusions in favour of Henry VIII., or who has 
ventured to question the verdict of posterity on that sacrilegious 
and bloodthirsty tyrant. That many of the manuscripts referred 
to in Mr. Froude’s Work contain matters not hitherto published, 
matters highly curious, and illustrative of the cruel, dark, rough 
years to which they relate, is unquestionable; and their discovery 
and selection is another benefit conferred upon the public by the 
judicious vigilance of the learned deputy keeper. 

But confining our present remarks to that part of Mr. Froude’s 
work in which he narrates the history of the suppression of 
monasteries, we can only say that, as far as we have observed, 
Mr. Froude does not adduce any newly-discovered documents, nor 
bring forward any new evidence with regard to the monastic 
delinquencies which were made the pretext for that memorable 
act of sacrilege and spoliation. His “authorities,” as he calls 
them, for the darker scandals affecting the monasteries, are the 
letters of those veracious and impartial functionaries the visitors 
appointed by Thomas Cromwell—at once accusers, witnesses, and 
judges—a selection from which was published from the MS. 
volume of Cromwell papers in the Cotton Library, by the 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


119 


Camden Society in its book of “ Letters relating to the Suppres¬ 
sion of the Monasteries,” but “ some of the statements of the 
visitors,” Mr. Froude candidly says, “ I cannot easily believe.” 
For his other authorities, this new elucidator of history takes the 
mild and impartial Burnet, to whose Collectanea he frequently 
refers, as if the libels raked together by that sour calumniator 
were of any authority as a matter of evidence; and Mr. Froude 
also follows the gentle Fox, besides Strype, and Latimer’s 
Sermons, and the recitals in the statute-book of the reign, in 
which humiliating record, we must take leave to say, we can 
only discover how ready parliament was to do the will of the 
king, and blow hot and cold at his bidding. 

The journals of the session of the fatal parliament of 1532 are 
lost; the “ Black Book,” or Return of the Visitation Commis¬ 
sioners, is lost; not one original information or sworn deposition 
is cited; but Mr. Froude wishes us to believe that in the 
Cromwell letters in the Cotton Library and the Rolls House, 
and in some Tudor statutes, we may read true accusations against 
the monks, and a justification for rooting out the whole monastic 
system; and he tells us that, if we are anxious to understand the 
English Reformation, we should place implicit confidence in the 
statute-book. 

It is, of course, only as an historical question that in this busy 
onward age people revert to the suppression of the monasteries, 
and discuss the justice of Henryks exterminating acts; and to 
review the troubles and oppressions of that dark and cruel time, 
is, indeed, of no more use, save for the elucidation of historical 
truth, than the inquest of the Lydford jury, who were said to 

-hang and draw, 

And sit in judgment after. 

In whatever way the question may be viewed, the holders of 
abbey lands will not be required to relinquish them to their 
former owners, and the interests of the living need not now 
prevent them from doing justice to the dead. Yet the question 
relating to the suppression of the monasteries is one which is 
seldom discussed without prejudice, and upon which the case has 
been too commonly taken pro confesso against the monks, and 



120 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


without anything like trustworthy evidence. We have less 
reliable information as to the state of the English monasteries in 
the opening years of the Reformation than we have as to the 
grounds on which those renowned military monks, the Templars, 
were suppressed in the reign of Edward II.; and though the 
stately edifices they raised, and the literary monuments of 
industry they accumulated, in the palmy days of monastic insti¬ 
tutions, might well plead for the piety and industry of the monks 
of old, Englishmen have generally no more sympathy for them 
than for the rule under which their unobtrusive lives were 
passed. 

In his chapter on “ the Social State of England in the Six¬ 
teenth Century,” Mr. Froude eloquently says: 

“ The paths trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up; 
old things were passing away, and the faith and the life of ten 
centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry was dying; 
the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins 
. . . . and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the 

old world were passing away never to return.Only 

among the aisles of the cathedrals, only as we gaze upon their 
silent figures on their tombs, does some faint conception float 
before us of what these men were .... and their church 
bells that sounded in the mediaeval age now fall upon the ear like 
the echoes of a vanished world.” 

The old monastic life is, indeed, hidden from us. To many 
people, the name of monk—once reverenced by prince and 
prelate, soldier and saint—seems only synonymous with all that 
is sensual, slothful, and superstitious; and the turf and ruins that 
cover the cemeteries in which the monks of England were laid 
for their final rest are to many of us only as “the grass that 
waves over the ruins of Babylon.” But in these days of historic 
inquiry we should endeavour to see what the monasteries were; 
and this has been very well described recently by a reviewer in a 
decidedly Protestant periodical, who says: 

“ The abbeys which towered in the midst of the English 
towns were images of the civil supremacy which the Church of 
the Middle Ages had asserted for itself; but they were images 
also of an inner, spiritual sublimity, which had won the homage 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


121 


of grateful and admiring nations. Tlie heavenly graces had once 
descended upon the monastic orders, making them ministers of 
mercy, patterns of celestial life, witnesses of the power of the 
Spirit to renew and sanctify the heart. And then it was that 
art, and wealth, and genius poured out their treasures to raise 
fitting tabernacles for the dwelling of so divine a soul. Alike in 
the village and the city, amongst the unadorned walls and lowly 
roofs which closed in the dwellings of the laity, the majestic 
houses of the Father of mankind and of his especial servants rose 
up in sovereign beauty. And ever at the sacred gates sat Mercy, 
pouring out relief from a never-failing store to the poor and the 
suffering; ever within the sacred aisles the voices of holy men 
were rising in intercession for the sins of mankind; and such 
blessed influences were thought to exhale round those mysterious 
precincts, that even the poor outcasts of society .... gathered 
round the walls as the sick man sought the shadow of the apostle, 
and lay there sheltered from the avenging hand. The abbeys of 
the Middle Ages withstood the waves of war, and, like the ark 
amidst the flood, floated inviolate and reverenced ”—while over 
secular institutions the fierce, swift tide of change swept by, and 
dynasties decayed. 

But Mr. Froude says we ought to go to the statute-book for 
trustworthy testimony; take, then, the declaration which a par¬ 
liament of the mighty Edward made five centuries and a-half 
ago on behalf of the religious houses, then impoverished by the 
extortions of the alien priories their monastic superiors abroad 
(it is in the “ Statute of Carlisle,” A.D. 1307): 

‘ ‘ Whereas monasteries, priories, and other religious houses 
were founded to the honour and glory of God and the advance¬ 
ment of Holy Church, by the king and his progenitors, and by 
the noblemen of the realm; and a great portion of lands and 
tenements have been given by them to the monasteries, priories, 
and religious houses, and the religious men serving God in them, 
to the intent that clerks and laymen might he admitted in such 
houses, that sick and feeble folk might be maintained, that hospi¬ 
tality, almsgiving, and other charitable deeds might he done, 
and prayers he said for the souls of the founders and their heirs.” 

But we should never complete this article within reasonable 


122 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


limits, if we were to discuss the purpose of monastic institu- 
. tions, or to adduce testimony to the character that the religious 
houses for centuries enjoyed in England. Mr. Froude does not 
deny their ancient grandeur, nor wish us to forget the days when 
they were filled by communities bound by religious rule, whose 
whole duty it was to labour and to pray; when the world laid 
its riches at their feet, and for eight centuries saw the notable 
spectacle of the owners of vast property administering it as a 
trust, and reaping from it no aggrandisement for themselves. 
He recognises, too, the fair beauty of the monastic spirit, and 
bids us view it still imaged in the calm sculptured forms with 
folded hands that are recumbent on the pavements of our abbey 
churches, and seem resting, as they lived, in contemplation of 
heaven. And he says: 

“ A thousand years in the world’s history had rolled by, and 
these lonely islands of prayer remained still anchored in the 
stream, the strands of the ropes which held them near their last 
parting, but still unbroken. They were what they had ever been.” 

Why, then, were they to fall? Because, according to Mr. 
Froude himself, the monasteries owned only the visitorial juris¬ 
diction of the Pope; and when, by the transfer to Henry of the 
ecclesiastical supremacy in England, that visitorial jurisdiction 
could be no longer exercised, the monasteries “ fell,” as he tells 
us, “ by a natural tendency to corruption and decay.” Faith, he 
says, had sunk into superstition, and duty had died into routine. 
The Pope had not found it necessary to order any general visita¬ 
tion of the monasteries; but parliament had no sooner transferred 
the ecclesiastical supremacy to the crown than the king under¬ 
took a general visitation. Now, why was this done? It does 
not appear that stories of the degeneracy of monastic manners 
were in circulation until the time when a general visitation was 
decided on. But we know that Henry’s idea of spiritual autho¬ 
rity, when vested in himself, was the destruction of those who 
resisted it; and he soon found that his usurpation of papal autho¬ 
rity in England could not co-exist with the monastic institutions, 
which were, by foundation, immediately subject only to Rome, 
and formed (as Professor Stephen has called them) the distant 
bulwarks of her power. The blood of heroic men, faithful and 



NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


123 


constant even unto death, like the monks of the London Charter- 
house, might ensanguine the Tudor scaffold, but the spirit of 
resistance to usurped authority could not be quenched by the 
executioner; and accordingly the king—who, for the indulgence 
of his unlawful passion for Anne Boleyn, revolutionised his 
kingdom and quarreled with the rest of Christendom, and who 
afterwards did not hesitate, for the sake of Jane Seymour, to 
shed innocent blood, and conspire with his council to cloak the 
deed by forms of law—determined to sacrifice the monasteries, 
and to make the irregularities which seem to have disgraced 
certain convents a pretext for destroying all the monastic founda¬ 
tions of the country, and transferring their possessions to himself. 

The apologists of Henry VIII. have lately turned very tri¬ 
umphantly to the indictment contained in a letter addressed by 
Cardinal Morton to William, Abbat of St. Alban’s, in 1489. 
That charges so revolting were true, almost surpasses belief; and 
the more so, as the accused abbat was only invited to reconsider 
his doings and amend them. As such dreadful charges were 
brought against the mitred Abbat of St. Alban’s so recently as 
the year 1489, it might be supposed that wickedness and corrup¬ 
tion would be found there, if anywhere, by Henry’s visitors, 
but they do not appear to have reported any immoralities at 
St. Alban’s; they only say there is “just cause of deprivation 
against the abbat, not only for breaking of the king’s injunctions, 
but also for manifest dilapidation, negligent administration, and 
sundry other causes.” Perhaps, like the Abbat of St. Andrew’s, 
Northampton, he had grown so dainty in his taste as to reserve 
rents payable in roses instead of corn and grain, in some of the 
abbey leases, which is made a subject of accusation against the 
monks of St. Andrew’s. 

But granting that the Abbat of St. Alban’s, in 1489, was 
guilty of the matters charged against him by Cardinal Morton, 
what evidence does that furnish to justify Henry’s spoliation of 
the other monasteries fifty years afterwards ? And if we are 
asked to believe that the crimes of the Abbat of St. Alban’s, in 
1489, were shared by all other abbats, and that, as time went on, 
the monasteries were deepening in profligacy and corruption 
until their overthrow could be no longer delayed, we answer that 


124 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


history is silent as to any such abuses ; and it must be remem¬ 
bered that in the reign of Edward IV., the reign of Henry VII., 
and the reign of Henry VIII. until bis statutes against Rome, 
there was no lack of power in the Pope to visit and depose, and 
there were many instances in which that power had been used 
with firmness. Mr. Froude woidd have us believe that Henry 
did no more than the Pope’s visitors would have done if the Holy 
See had authorised a visitation of the English religious houses; 
but, although they might cause delinquent monks to be deposed 
and punished, the visitors in former times did not suppress and 
destroy their monastery. 

As to the motives for this purifying visitation, Mr. Froude 
bids us look at the necessity of Henry’s position, and would have 
us believe that, like his divorce from Queen Katharine, it pre¬ 
sented itself to him as a moral obligation ! We are all familiar 
with the hypocritical pretences put forward for the divorce when 
that measure was demanded by Henry’s fickle appetites; and we 
are not surprised by the pretence that the visitation of monas¬ 
teries was undertaken for the reformation of manners. Accord¬ 
ingly, the monks were accused of being profligate, self-indulgent, 
and forgetful of their vows, and the monastic institution was 
declared effete and delusive. Henry, we know, professed a great 
zeal for true religion, as became the “Defender of the Faith;” 
and the purity of his own character assures us that any self-indul¬ 
gence or profligacy must have been unendurable by the royal 
accuser of the monks. It is true that some suspicion is cast upon 
the motive, when we find that even before the suppression, and 
by the inquiring visitors themselves, the jewels and plate of the 
“sick man” were packed up for the king’s use; and that (as 
Mr. Froude himself tells us), in 1529, at a time when the visita¬ 
tion of the monasteries had hardly begun, the destructive party 
were so confident in the temper of the approaching parliament, 
and in the irresistible pressure of the times, that the conversation 
in the great houses of London was an exulting anticipation of the 
downfall of ecclesiastical institutions, and the confiscation of eccle¬ 
siastical property. If Mr. Froude means by “the irresistible 
pressure of the times ” that the public voice accused the monks 
and demanded their destruction, we take leave to say that there 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


125 


is no more evidence of any such accusation and demand by 
the people of England than of their alleged impatience for the 
decision of the Pope in favour of Henry’s divorce. If, as 
Mr. Froude represents, the monasteries were regarded hy the 
people with “gathering indignation” when their sacrifice was 
declared necessary to render the kingdom independent of the 
Pope, what does he say to that popular insurrection in their 
favour some years afterwards—the ill-fated “ Pilgrimage of 
Grace?” Perhaps “the irresistible pressure of the times” was 
to be found in “ the Society of Christian Brothers,” as they 
were called, the Protestant Association of those days, who are 
described by our author as “poor men, poor cobblers, weavers, 
carpenters, trade apprentices, and humble artisans, who might be 
seen at night stealing along the lanes and alleys of London, 
carrying with them some precious load of books which it was 
death to possess.”* For then, as in later years— 

The oyster-women locked their fish up, 

And trudged away to cry “No bishop;” 

Botchers left old clothes in the lurch, 

And fell to turn and patch the Church. 

But this new-born zeal in 1529 contrasts somewhat remarkably 
with the indifference—nay, according to Mr. Froude, hatred of 
the mass of the people towards Protestantism only two years 
before. The time had not yet come when a pious horror of 
popery pervaded the tap-room of every English hostelry; and we 
believe the people had no wish to lose their old friends the 
monks, who were, confessedly, liberal landlords and charitable 
neighbours. 

Thomas Cromwell has always been supposed to have urged 
upon the king the dissolution of the abbeys. It was necessary, 
however, to lay some evidence before parliament to justify their 
sacrifice; and so, with the predetermined purpose of spoliation, the 
reforming visitation was constituted. “Rough and ready” instru¬ 
ments were found in the infamous and execrable Lee and Layton, 
and they were constituted visitors in the king’s name. There were 
six hundred and twenty-three monasteries in England. The two 


* Froude, ii. 152. 


126 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


commissioners were appointed in September, 1535 ; tlie parlia¬ 
ment that was to be asked to suppress them was to meet in tlie 
following February, and we are expected to believe that the con¬ 
dition of each monastery was investigated in the interval! The 
very sameness of the result which the commissioners pretended to 
discover, shows the animus of the inquiry; and one would suppose 
that the visitors found the monks only waiting for their friendly 
ear to confess their iniquities, just as we read now and then of a 
man looking out for a policeman to give himself into custody for 
some real or imaginary offence. Amongst many other suspicious 
circumstances, is the readiness with which a monk—as, for 
example, him of Pershore—was induced by the visitor to confess 
to neglect of the rule, and to the commission of various delin¬ 
quencies. If such confessions were genuine, they only show, what 
was very probable, that there were miscreant, backsliding monks, 
or monks who were impatient of their vows, and covetous of the 
pension which they were told compliance would secure. But why 
a confession obtained from a Worcestershire monk was to work 
the suppression of a Yorkshire abbey, does not appear. The sud¬ 
denness, too, with which monks are represented to have been 
converted to the new order of things when Henry had assumed 
the supremacy, shows the hand of the commissioners—witness 
the letter printed by Mr. Froude (vol. ii., p. 478), where the 
monk informs against his superior for allowing “ the Bishop of 
Rome’s” name to remain in the service books. But when monks 
were found who emulated the constancy of their noble brethren 
of the Charter-house—monks who were neither impatient of their 
vows, conscious of guilt, nor desirous to bid for the king’s favour, 
the commissioners were obliged to forge confessions, or resort to 
subornation of perjury; and they appear to have done so with 
considerable success. 

After the visitation, the king’s highness seems to have placed 
the monks under surveillance. They certainly were not so indul¬ 
gently treated as our ticket-of-leave convicts are. Mr. Froude 
accuses some of them of a “ fraudulent concealment” of property, 
by withdrawing the dedicated plate and jewels of their church 
from seizure by the commissioners. But in fraud of whom, we 
would ask, was their church property retained? It had not then 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


127 


been divested from those who legally held it in right of their 
church; and even if it had been transferred by act of parliament 
to the king, what fraud would there have been in concealing for 
their altar what had been inalienably dedicated for its use? 

And so, the famous “ Black Book” of the monasteries was pre¬ 
sented to the Commons. Mr. Froude says he “cannot discuss the 
question whether the stories it contains were true;” he is content 
that “it was generally accepted as true by the English parlia¬ 
ment.” When we think of the stories it was said to contain, of 
the sacrilegious determination of the king to secularise the pro¬ 
perty of the monasteries, of the number of timeservers and courtiers 
expectant of abbey lands who were in parliament, and of the 
temper of the anti-papal party, we may perhaps believe that, as 
Latimer tells us, there arose in the Commons House, when the 
report of the visitors of abbeys was read, one long cry of “ Down 
with them !” And like the cry—“ Away with Him !”—that rose 
on a more awful occasion in the hall of Pontius Pilate, it pre¬ 
vailed, and without trial the monasteries were suppressed; the 
lesser monasteries first, but the greater monasteries not until 
some time afterwards, “as if increase of appetite had grown by 
what it fed on.” 

The commissioners report that they found in some of the 
larger abbeys the same delinquencies and immoralities that they 
report in the lesser houses; and if the crimes alleged against the 
monks had been the real cause of the suppression, justice would 
have required that all, being equally guilty, should equally fall. 
Yet the measure was confined to the less wealthy houses only; 
and in the statute for their suppression it is even recited “that 
in divers great and solemn monasteries of this realm—thanks be 
to God—religion is right well kept and observed.” 

Mr. Froude says that in the reforming party there was differ¬ 
ence of opinion as to the legality of secularising property that 
had been dedicated to God. Latimer was anxious that the 
monasteries should at least be converted into places of education, 
and he deprecated the lay appropriation of abbey lands. Cranmer, 
on the other hand, was reluctant that clerical corporations should 
exist in any form. However, parliament was soon induced to 
resolve that reformation was hopeless, and, without trial or 


128 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


hearing, to dissolve all the lesser abbeys (that is to say, all monas¬ 
teries having an income of less than 200Z. a-year), declaring it to 
he “ much more to the pleasure of Almighty God, and for the 
honour of this His realm, that the possessions of such spiritual 
houses, now spent and spoiled and wasted for increase and 
maintenance of sin, should he converted to better use;’ and 
Mr. Froude has told us how trustworthy the declarations even of 
a Tudor statute are. The “ better use ” aimed at was that of the 
compliant noblemen and gentlemen expectant of abbey lands, by 
whom of course they would not be spoiled and wasted; but, for 
the present, parliament (by statute 27 Henry VIII. chap. 28) 
gave those possessions to the king. “ And this measure,” says 
Mr. Froude, “ we must regard as bravely and wisely resolved.” 

As to the great monasteries, that is to say, as to all the 
religious houses not within the statute just mentioned, the policy 
of the court was (as Mr. Wright has justly observed in his 
edition of Letters on the Suppression of Monasteries) to persuade 
or terrify the monks into a voluntary surrender; but this policy 
was successful in a comparatively small number of instances. 
Where the abbats were stubborn, they were indicted for high 
treason, and upon one charge or another disposed of by the 
gallows. Thus it was that the noble and ancient abbey of 
Glastonbury fell. Can any Englishman think without indigna¬ 
tion and horror of the mockery of justice by which this outrage 
was accomplished ? Glastonbury was doomed because the visitors 
found in the abbat’s study a MS. “ book of arguments against 
the divorce of the king’s majesty and the queen dowager;” and, 
moreover, a printed life of “ Thomas Bequet.” It does not 
appear that the king’s visitors could discover any immorality or 
other matter of complaint against this great abbey. They, 
however, managed to have the abbat executed upon a charge 
that he had robbed Glastonbury church. Probably he had 
endeavoured to conceal some altar plate from the hands of the 
spoiler. The true reason for the dissolution of the abbey was 
that the commissioners found it (to use their own language) 
“ the goodliest house of the sort they had ever seen. The 
house,” they say, “ is great, goodly, and so princely, as we have 
not seen the like; with four parks adjoining; a great mere, five 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 


129 


miles in compass, well replenished with great pike, bream, perch, 
and roach; four fair manor-places belonging to the late abbat, 
being goodly mansions.’’ 

In this way the greater monasteries gradually shared the fate 
of the lesser houses which had fallen at one stroke under the act 
of parliament; and so rapid was the work of suppression that, 
whereas in the parliament of 1536 twenty-eight mitred abbats 
were present or voted in the House of Lords, they were 
diminished in the parliament which opened on the 18th of April* 
1539, to twenty, and in the session begun in the following year 
all the abbats had disappeared. In the mean time, and before the 
dissolution of the great houses, the king’s visitors were sent to 
any abbey which, like St. Edmund’s at Bury, was particularly 
rich and provokingly innocent of any offence, to visit for the 
purpose of confiscating “the superstitious relics.” How gold and 
silver, to the value of five thousand marks (a sum equivalent, 
perhaps, to 18,000Z. of our money), came to be regarded as 
“ superstitious relics,” does not appear; but the more valuable the 
spoil the more superstitious seems to have been its use. 

As Henry VIII. had been able to intimidate even the clergy in 
convocation into pronouncing the opinion he wanted in favour of 
his divorce, it is not surprising that he induced a parliament, 
poor, servile, and corrupt, to suppress the lesser monasteries, and 
to vest in him these houses, and afterwards the possessions of the 
greater monasteries that had been dissolved. The manner in 
which the abbey lands soon came to be possessed by the courtiers 
and statesmen who had been active in these measures for the 
crown forms a significant commentary on the motive for the 
whole proceeding. 

Henry had found parliament very compliant to his will, and 
ready to vote his measures “acceptable to God,” or “for the 
benefit of the realm,” as the case might be. The obsequious 
Commons—whose learning of course had qualified them to judge 
of such a matter—had affirmed the invalidity of his marriage to 
Katharine; then, the invalidity of his marriage to Anne Boleyn; 
and when he wished to marry again, humbly entreated him to do 
so; they were ready to vote Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate, and 
then to vote them legitimate again, as the policy of the time 

K 


130 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


should require; they had complaisantly assisted him to dispose of 
wives of whom he was weary and take others whom he coveted, 
and why should they not help him to the monastic wealth of 
which he likewise desired to possess himself ? They had assumed 
to declare him Supreme Head of the English Church; and when, 
later in his reign, the anti-papal king turned suppressor of 
religious houses, separated from the communion of the Church of 
Rome, and was formally deprived by the Pope of the title he 
had conferred, the legislature assumed to confer it and annex it 
for ever to the crown ! He did not find the clergy so compliant 
in 1531, and had to resort to most oppressive means before he 
could extort from the clerical body a recognition of his title of 
Head of the Church. It was pretended they had incurred the 
penalties of the statutes of prcernunire, and they had to buy their 
ransom by humiliation and a subsidy of 100,000/. In the follow¬ 
ing year the impoverished clergy were sufficiently servile. They 
endeavoured to outbid parliament for the king’s favour. They 
volunteered in the opposition to the Pope; and, hating a burden 
upon their purses more than they loved the union of Christen¬ 
dom, they in convocation addressed the king and offered to revolt 
from Rome. While the visitation was in progress, and while 
parliament was busy with the measures of suppression of the 
monasteries, the bishops were paralysed by inhibitions, and 
“ submitted,” says Mr. Froude, “ in a forced conformity.” Our 
author confesses that the Lords of Parliament, spiritual as well as 
temporal, “ existed as an ornament rather than as a power, and, 
under the direction of the council, followed as the stream drew 
them, when individually they would have chosen, had they dared 
to do so, a different course.” By the King and the Commons, 
through the instrumentality of Cromwell, the work of sacrilege 
was done, and we have many a glimpse of the selfish scheming of 
that unscrupulous adventurer;—witness, for example, the letter 
addressed to him by Lee, the commissioner for the northern 
district, in which the writer offers to promote Cromwell’s desire 
for the stewardship of the possessions of Furness Abbey, if he 
will aid Lee in obtaining a grant of Holm Cultram. So, too, 
Mr. John Beaumont sends Cromwell a present of 20/., and prays 
that he may be allowed to purchase the nunnery of Grace Dieu. 


NEW LIGHTS IN HISTORY. 131 

And so, ad nauseam , the harpy courtiers contended for the 
possessions of the monasteries, or for the offices of stewardship 
created by their suppression. But Mr. Froude wishes us, never¬ 
theless, to believe that the suppression was occasioned by the 
corruption of the monasteries, and was undertaken by the govern¬ 
ment as a duty which the interests of religion obliged them to 
perform ; yet he elsewhere admits that the monasteries were 
“sacrificed to the policy which rendered it necessary to throw off 
the papal jurisdiction.” Henry VIII. had no wish to abridge the 
papal power until its authority restrained his licentious and adul¬ 
terous will. On the divorce question, the fickle tyrant, as we all 
know, first appealed to the Pope’s dispensing powers, but when 
he found that he could not obtain sentence in his favour, then 
made it treason to assert them ; and it was not until the lone-- 

o 

suffering Katharine appealed to the Pope that Henry abolished 
the papal power in England. With regard to the suppression of 
monasteries, Protestant sympathies are in favour of the destructive 
reformers and against the constructive monks; but it is a mistake 
to view that measure as undertaken with any view to the Refor¬ 
mation. That change was the gradual consequence of Henry’s 
assumption of the supremacy. Some time before the suppression 
of monasteries, the mass of the people, says Mr. Froude, fancied 
“ it was possible for a national church to separate itself from the 
unity of Christendom, and, at the same time, to retain the power 
to crush or prevent innovation in doctrine ; they fancied that 
faith in the sacramental system could still be maintained, though 
the priesthood should minister in gilded chains. But Wolsey 
saw that plain men could not and would not continue to reve¬ 
rence the office of the priesthood when the priests were treated as 
the paid officials of an earthly authority higher than their own.” 
When, in 1534, parliament assumed to declare Henry “ Supreme 
Head ” of the Church of England, the government took care to 
disclaim any intention to decline or vary from the congregation 
of Christ’s Church in anything concerning the articles of the 
Catholic faith, or anything declared by Holy Scripture and the 
Word of God. But no final rupture had then taken place with 
Rome. The political complications of the time, and the power 
of England, led Henry to imagine that, notwithstanding his self- 

K 2 


132 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


willed acts of defiance and sacrilege, the nation might remain in 
religious communion with Rome; and the statutes against the 
papal power which were enacted when that expectation was given 
up, are to be viewed as dictated by a roused spirit of national 
independence and a jealousy of foreign jurisdiction, rather than 
by any altered convictions of Englishmen on the score of doctrine. 
How soon the result foreseen by Wolsey came to pass, we have 
no present occasion to show; and having intended to confine the 
present article to that part of Mr. Froude’s work in which he 
treats of the suppression of the monasteries, we need not trace the 
history of the early Reformation statutes, or of their victims, 
who formed a large proportion of the two thousand people who 
(on an average) were hung yearly in England during Henry’s 
detested reign. 


ESSAY ON CIIUROH BELLS. 


[Quarterly Review, Sept. 1854.] 

[The substance of this Essay was previously read as a Lecture to the 

Gateshead Mechanics’ Institution.] 

-Hourly, calmly on she swings, 

Fann’d by the fleeting wings of Time :— 

No pulse, no heart, no feeling, hers, 

She lends the warning voice to Fate ; 

And still companions, while she stirs 
The changes of the human state. 

There is abundance of literary evidence to show that in bygone 
times the history and office of the bell engaged the attention of 
the learned. Mr. Ellacombe* enumerates nearly forty distinct 
treatises of foreign origin, ranging from 1495 to the present 
century. Of these the best known is the work of Magius “ De 
Tintinnabulis.” The author, an Italian, was a civil judge in the 
Venetian service at Candia, when besieged in 1571 by the Turks. 
He was taken prisoner, and amused his captivity by writing the 
treatise which has preserved his name. His occupation could 
gain him no favour in a land where the bell was considered 
the symbol of sinful infidelity, and he was finally beheaded 
by order of a pasha. The productions of our native pens 
are mostly confined to the art of ringing, which is peculiarly 
an English accomplishment. In other countries there is no 
attempt at a musical peal, and the only object is to produce the 
utmost possible noise by a chance, irregular clanging. Such 
was formerly among ourselves the enthusiasm of the educated 
classes on the subject, that, in the reign of Queen Mary, Dr. 
Tresham thought there was no surer method of enticing the 

* Paper on Bells, with Illustrations. By the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, in 
Report of Bristol Architectural Society. 1850. 



134 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


students at Oxford to mass than by promising to make the Uni¬ 
versity peal the finest in England. The revived interest in all 
ecclesiastical studies has extended itself to bells ; and the agreeable 
brochure of Mr. Gatty,* and the researches of Mr. Ellacombe, are 
worthy fruits of this newly-awakened spirit. 

We are accustomed at all times and in every country “ to 
hear the bell speak for itself.” From youth to age the sound is 
sent forth through crowded streets, or floats with sweetest melody 
above the quiet fields. It gives a tongue to time, which would 
otherwise pass over our heads as silently as the clouds, and lends 
a warning to its perpetual flight. From every church-tower it 
summons the faithful of distant valleys to the house of God ;— 

How sweet to hear the soothing chime, 

And by thanksgiving measure time ! 

It is the voice of rejoicing at festivals, at christenings, and at 
marriages, and of mourning at the departure of the soul ; and 
when life is ended we leave the remains of those we loved to rest 
within the bell’s deep sound. Its tone, therefore, comes to be 
fraught with memorial associations, and we know what a throng 
of mental images of the past can be aroused by the music of a 
peal of bells :— 

O, what a preacher is the time-worn tower, 

Reading great sermons with its iron tongue! 

The bell has had a continuous existence amongst civilised 
people from a very early time. For nearly fourteen centuries it 
has been employed by the Church, and it w T as known to ancient 
nations for perhaps as many centuries before our era. Conse¬ 
crated to Christian purposes, its sound has travelled with the light 
that has lighted the Gentiles; and, now that the Gospel has 
penetrated to the most distant regions of the globe, there is not 
perhaps a minute of time in which the melody of bells is not 
somewhere rising towards Heaven, as— 

Earth with her thousand voices praises God. 

* The Bell: its Origin, History, and Uses. By the Rev. Alfred Gatty. 
London, 1848. 


CHURCH BELLS. 


135 


For ages before the bell from its airy height in the old church- 
tower announced its cognizance of human events, diminutive bells 
were in common use. An eastern patriarch in the twelfth cen¬ 
tury quotes a writer who gravely avers that Tubal Cain, the arti¬ 
ficer in brass and iron, formed the sounding metal into a rude kind 
of bell, and that Noah employed it to summon his ship-carpenters 
to their work. Less theoretical historians may be well contented 
to begin with the golden bells mentioned in the Book of Exodus 
as attached to the vestment of the high priest in the Sanctuary, 
in the same way that they were appended to the royal costume 
amongst the ancient Persians ; or with those small bronze bells, 
apparently intended for horse and chariot furniture, of which a 
great number were found by Mr. Layard in a chamber of the 
palace of Nimroud. On being analysed, the curious fact was 
discovered that they contain one part of tin to ten parts of copper; 
and if, as Mr. Layard remarks, the tin was obtained, as probably 
was the case, from Phoenicia, it may actually have been exported 
nearly three thousand years ago from the British isles. 

Amongst the Greeks hand-bells were employed in camps and 
garrisons, were hung on triumphal cars, sounded in the fish- 
market of Athens, summoned guests to feasts, preceded funeral 
processions, and were sometimes used in religious rites in the 
temples. Another purpose to which they were put was to hang 
them about the necks of malefactors on their way to execution, 
“ lest,” says Zonaras, u innocent persons should be defiled by touch¬ 
ing them.” It is more likely that it was to draw the gaze of the 
people upon the criminal, and thus aggravate his punishment. 
From this Greek custom was derived (we are told) the Roman 
one of fixing a bell and a scourge to the emperor’s chariot, that 
in the height of his power he might be admonished against pride, 
and be mindful of human misery. 

It is needless to recapitulate all the less doubtful applications 
of bells among the Romans. The hour of bathing and of business 
at public places was announced by it, and, with the imperfect 
means possessed by the ancients of measuring time, it must have 
been a far more important signal than at present. The little 
household bells of Pompeii are yet musical with their old domes¬ 
tic tones. The wealthier Romans had them in domestic use to 


136 


LECTURES ANI) ESSAYS. 


assemble their families, “just,” says Magius, writing about 1570, 

“ as the households of nobles and cardinals at Rome are summoned 
to dinner and supper by a bell hung in the highest part ol the 
building, so that it may not only be heard by the inmates, but by 
those who are without.” Something larger than the hand-bell 
would appear to have been common about the same period in 
English mansions, to judge from the expression ol Macbeth 

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready, 

She strike upon the bell. 

Rut in the reign of Elizabeth the horn still hung outside the 
gate, and did much of the duty which afterwards devolved upon 
bells. In the court at Penshurst there is a bell of considerable 
size, suspended from a wooden frame, with the inscription, 

“ Robert, Earl of Leicester, at Penshurst, 1649.” The horn had 
by this time been quite superseded. This disuse of the hand-bell 
was one of the many visible signs of the downfall of the old aris¬ 
tocratic system—an indication that the troop of servants had 
ceased to be “ in waiting.” Few persons are aware how modern 
is the present practice of domestic bell-hanging ; for no trace of 
it has been discovered in the old mansions of our nobility, even 
so late as the reign of Queen Anne. A correspondent of the 
“ Builder ” states that when he was taken over Belton Hall by 
Lord Brownlow, about forty years ago, his lordship pointed out 
two large bells, one suspended over the landing on the stairs at 
the north end of the hall, and the other at the south end, remark¬ 
ing that they were the only means his predecessors had of com¬ 
manding the services of the domestics ; “ but, as it is getting into 
fashion,” he added, “ to have bells hung from the rooms in houses? 

I must have them also.” The late duke was the first Northum¬ 
berland who allowed the walls of Alnwick to be pierced. Each 
room had its lackey instead of its bell. The palatial mansion of 
Holkham, which was commenced in 1734 and completed in 1760, 
had no such conveniences till the present earl provided them a 
few years ago—so many centuries did it take to conduct man- 

• 

kind to the simple invention of ringing a bell in a horizontal 
direction by means of a crank and a piece of wire. This simple 
contrivance has at length found its way to Jerusalem, and in the 





CHUliCH BELLS. 


137 


Gardens of Solomon, which have been let to an Englishman, 
whose house is situated where the daughters of Jerusalem gathered 
the lilies of the field, you may see a bright brass knob, let into 
a square of porcelain in the wall, and over it this direction in the 
English language—“ Ring the bell ”—rather an anomaly in such 
a place. 

But we have not yet emerged from ancient Rome, where, 
amongst other fancies, bells were appended to horses, a custom 
which lingers in many parts of the continent, and which was 
almost universal, until recent days, with our English teams. On 
dark nights in narrow lanes they answered the important end of 
warning horsemen or waggoners of each other’s approach, and 
enabling them to avoid a collision in a spot where there was not 
room enough to pass. The improvement in roads has put an end 
to the practice. The Romans “ belled ” their flocks as well as 
their horses, in order, according to Strabo, that wild beasts 
might be scared away by the sound. “ If any one,” it is enacted 
in the rural laws of Justinian, “ take away the bell from an ox or 
sheep, let him, being convicted, be scourged as a thief, and, if the 
animal be lost thereby, let him pay the loss/’ Magius relates 
that the shepherds of his day continued the custom, “ but not so 
much to keep off beasts of prey as to enable the owners to trace 
their cattle when they strayed,” which is its chief modern use, 
and every flock in Scotland has one such indicator to enable the 
herdsman to find the whereabouts of his animals when lost in the 
snow. “ Besides,” adds Magius, “ the shepherds think that the 
flocks are pleased with the sound of the bell, as they are by the 
flute, and that they grow fat in consequence.” The notion that ani¬ 
mals have some sort of conscious pride in these appendages is 
countenanced by Southey, who, speaking of the Alpine cattle in 
his youth, says, that “ they stalk forth proud and pleased when 
wearing their bells. If the leading cow, who hitherto bore the 
largest bell, be deprived of it, she manifests a sense of disgrace by 
lowing incessantly, abstaining from food, and growing lean; and 
the happy rival on which the bell has been conferred is singled 
out for her vengeance.” 

The Romans appear also to have used a kind of tambourine, 
to which many small tintinnahula were attached ; and cymbals, 


138 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


round which many little bells were suspended, were represented 
on marbles which Magius saw at Rome. He likewise saw sculp¬ 
tures in which elephants were represented wearing bells. They 
were also used on triumphal cars; and the business of public 
places was announced by a bell—the original, perhaps, of the 
town-bell sounded for convening guilds and corporations in later 
times. 

The material of the bells so long known to heathen antiquity 
was generally bronze, sometimes silver, and not uncommonly 
gold. Their first construction in the expanded form with which 
we are familiar now was due to Christians. When the true God 
was worshipped in lonely caverns, amid the haunts of the wolf, 
or under the ban of heathens more cruel than the beasts, no 
sounds proclaimed their whereabouts to their foes; but from the 
time when praise and incense rose in stately temples, enriched 
with all the accessories that devotion could contrive, the bell 
assumed its part in the solemnities of religion. Some authors 
have ascribed its introduction (a.d. 400) to Paulinus Bishop of 
Nola, in Campania, the contemporary of St. Jerome; but the 
silence of the bishop with regard to either tower or bells, in an 
epistle in which he minutely describes the church, may certainly 
be taken as a strong argument against the claim, especially as 
there is no allusion to the subject in any contemporary or imme¬ 
diately subsequent writer. It was not till after a.d. 500, accord¬ 
ing to Hospinianus, that bells, which he calls campance , came 
into ecclesiastical use. They are supposed to have received their 
designation from the place where they were originally made. 
“Because,” says Magius, “the founders practised this most useful 
work in Campania, the large bells were called campance and 
hence the term campanile was given to the towers in which they 
were hung. A species of diminutive bells were in like manner 
called nolce, from Nola, the city, and these were sometimes 
attached to a frame and rung during service. 

* A Roman gentleman of the present day, well known as an Etrurian 
collector, claims the title of Marchese Campana in right of an ancestor set 
up against Bishop Paulinus as inventor of bells, and the title has, we 
believe, been sanctioned either by Pius IX., or the King of Naples, or 
both. 


CHURCH BELLS. 


139 


The wandering ecclesiastics would naturally bring over speci¬ 
mens of the nolce from abroad shortly after their primitive appli¬ 
cation in Italy to sacred purposes, and the portable altar-bells 
seem accordingly to have been the first which were known in 
England. But the ponderous, far-sounding bell was introduced 
by the Anglo-Saxons at an early period. It was among the 
enrichments for his church which Benedict, Abbat of Were- 
mouth and Jarrow, brought from Italy in the reign of King 
Egfrid; and about the same period (a.d. 680) the nuns of 
St. Hilda’s sisterhood, as Bede relates, were summoned by it to 
prayers. It has been conjectured by several antiquaries that the 
tower of the church was suggested by the bell, that being lifted 
up aloft it might throw its solemn tones to a greater distance. 

For many centuries the bell-foundries appear to have been set 
up in the religious houses of Europe, and the abbats, priors, and 
frequently the bishops were the master-manufacturers. As long 
as the casting took place in the monasteries a religious character 
was given to the process. The brethren stood ranged round the 
furnaces ; the 150th Psalm was chanted, and the Almighty was 
invoked to overshadow the molten metal with his power and 
bless the work for the honour of the saint to whom it was to be 
dedicated.* 

One of the earliest notices of monastic bell-founding occurs in 
a Life of Charlemagne, quoted by Magius, in which it is stated 
that in the abbey of St. Gall, a monk, who greatly excelled in 
the art, produced a specimen of his craft, the tone of which was 
much admired by the emperor. “ My lord emperor,” said the 
monk upon this, “ command a great quantity of copper to be 
brought to me, which I will purify by fire, and let me have silver 
instead of tin, about a hundred pounds, and I will cast for you 
such a bell that the other in comparison with it shall be 
mute.” Magius lamented that princes were more avaricious 
than formerly, and would no longer bestow the necessary coin to 
impart a silvery sound to the bells. But it is stated by an author 

* The grand Ode of Schiller on the “ Casting of the Bell ” is now so 
familiar to all the world, that we need do no more than recommend those 
who are ignorant of German to read it in the translation of Sir E. B. 
Lytton. 


140 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


who appears to have derived his information from some cunning 
artificers of the present day, that the wide-spread notion of the 
advantage of this ingredient is a complete mistake. “ Persons,” says 
he, “ talk as familiarly of sweetening the tone of bell-metal by the 
introduction of a little silver, as they would speak of sweetening a 
cup of tea, or a glass of negus, with a lump of sugar. This is a 
dream. Silver, if introduced in any large quantity, would injure 
the sound, being in its nature more like lead as compared with 
copper, and therefore incapable of producing the hard, brittle, 
dense, and vibratory amalgam called bell-metal. There are, 
no question, various little ingredients which the skilful founder 
employs to improve his composition; but these are the secrets of 
the craft and peculiar to every separate foundry.” Nor is there 
any valid reason for supposing that our ancestors employed it any 
more than ourselves, except that it was a custom to cast a few 
tributary coins into the furnace. The composition of the amal¬ 
gam in England six hundred years ago is known to us from the 
materials delivered in the thirty-sixth year of Henry III. for the 
purpose of making three bells for the chapel in Dover Castle, 
when all that was furnished was an old bell, 1,050 pounds of 
copper, and 500 pounds of tin. The mixture was therefore made 
up of rather more than two parts of copper to one of tin; the 
modern receipt only differs from the ancient in allowing three 
parts of copper. The vaunted superiority of a few of the older 
bells over those of recent times has 'been ascribed by some to the 
influence of the atmosphere in the course of centuries; others 
have suggested it was due to melting the metal by a fire of wood, 
which is known to improve the quality of iron, instead of by the 
rapid process of a blast furnace. But there is another cause which 
has had its share in the effect. “ If the quantity of metal,” says 
Mr. Gatty, “ be not in due proportion to the calibre of the bell, 
the power of its tone will be lost; and only a panny , harsh, iron¬ 
like sound can be produced from it. For instance, if you try to 
get the note E out of a quantity of metal which is only adapted 
to sustain F well, the F in that case would be preferable to the E 
intended.” Now the old bell-founders allowed a larger mass of 
metal to a given note than we do, for modern skill, save when 
regulated by a Denison, is directed as much to economy as excellence 


CHURCH BELLS. 


141 


of manufacture. The tenor bell of Rochester cathedral weighs 28 
cwt., but its note F would be reached at present with half the metal, 
at an equivalent sacrifice of dignity of tone. In science and dex¬ 
terity the living artificers surpass those of bygone times. By the 
early part of the fourteenth century a distinct class of workmen 
followed the trade, and the bell of Crokesden Abbey, in Stafford¬ 
shire, having been fractured in 1313, Master Henry Michel of 
Lichfield was engaged with his assistants in recasting it from the 
Octave of the Trinity to the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed 
Virgin. Notwithstanding the time bestowed upon the process, it 
turned out a failure, and being recommenced anew it took two 
months more to bring the work to a happy conclusion. A modern 
bell-founder would have much to teach Master Henry Michel in 
the technicalities of the trade. 

However admirable may be the material employed, the excel¬ 
lence of the bell still depends upon its shape, and the proportion 
observed in its different parts. Slight defects in the tone are 
remedied after the casting. “ If the note is too sharp,’’ we are 
told, “ the bell is turned thinner : if too flat, its diameter is 
lessened in proportion to its substance by the edge being cut. 
When an entire set turn out to be in harmony, they are called a 
‘ maiden peal.’ This, however, is a most rare occurrence ; many 
sets of bells have the credit of being * maiden ’ without deserving 
it, and a great many, for the honour of being considered such, 
are left decidedly out of tune.” Whether the old bell-founders 
practised these after-processes for the rectification of the tone, or 
whether they were obliged to abide by the original casting, we 
are not informed. 

In 1463 the manufacture of the smaller sort of bells had 
attained to such importance in England, that, on the complaint of 
the artificers to the king in parliament that they were impov¬ 
erished by the importation from abroad, it was ordained that no 
merchant or other person should bring any sacring bells into the 
country. The great weight, and consequently expensive carriage, 
of the larger kinds, rendered the native artists comparatively safe 
from foreign competition as to them. An account has been pre¬ 
served of the cost a few years before (a.d. 1457) of one of these 
bigger productions. The material is charged 100s. 8 d .; the 


142 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


making it, 20s. Id; for the conveyance of an old broken bell to 
Bristol, 5s.; and the bringing the new one thence to Yeovil, 
6s. 8 d. Two days and a half were spent in raising the bell, and 
the wages of three carpenters for this period came to 2s. One 
of the churchwardens had 6d. for his expenses in superintendence, 
the other 2d .; and the modest sum of 2s. 2 \d. went in refreshments. 

The Bristol founders appear to have been celebrated in the 
fifteenth century. Before the year 1684 Abraham Kudall, of 
Gloucester, had brought the art to great perfection. His de¬ 
scendants in succession continued the business, and down to 
Lady Hay, 1774, the family had cast the enormous number of 
3594 bells. Several of the most famous peals in the West of 
England were of the Rudall make, besides many others in 
different parts of the country, such as those of All Saints, Ful¬ 
ham, and those of St. Dunstan’s, St. Bride’s, and St. Martin’s-in- 
the-Fields. The bells of the University Church, Cambridge 
{circa 1730), so much admired by Handel, were from the St. 
Neot’s foundry. The Messrs. Mears, who succeeded to Rudall 
at Gloucester, and who have also an immense establishment in 
London, are stated by Mr. Gatty to manufacture annually several 
hundred bells, and to have not uncommonly thirty tons of molten 
metal in their furnace. The vast number of new churches which 
have been built of late years, and the admirable spirit which 
prevails for restoring old ones to their pristine completeness, 
must have raised the trade to a pitch of prosperity never known 
before. Many, however, of the modern towers are of too flimsy 
a construction to bear the jarring of a full peal. A catastrophe 
which occurred at Liverpool in 1810, when the spire of St. 
Nicholas’ church fell upon the roof as the people were assembling 
for the service, and killed twenty-three of the congregation, was 
partly caused by the vibration of the bells. 

The bell having been cast, the next step in old times was to 
name it, and in this the ecclesiastics followed all the ceremonies 
employed in the christening of children. It was carried to the 
font, it had godfathers and godmothers, was sprinkled with water, 
was anointed with oil, and was finally covered with the white 
garment, oi chrisom, which in the Roman Catholic ritual was put 
upon infants at the conclusion of the rite, as an emblem of inno- 


CHURCH BELLS. 


143 


cency. Nothing could exceed the pomp and solemnity of the 
service. “ Costly feasts were given, and even in poor villages a 
hundred gold crowns were sometimes spent on the ceremony.” 
The usage is so ancient that it is mentioned by Alcuin, who says 
that “ it ought not to seem a new thing that bells are blessed and 
anointed, and a name given to them/’ It would be easy to 
enumerate a variety of instances, for the custom continued in 
England down to the Reformation ; but we forbear to subjoin a 
list which would find few readers, unless perchance among the 
members of the Society of Antiquaries. And we give only a 
single memorial of the practice, which we take from the accounts 
of the churchwardens of St. Laurence, Reading, in 1499 : 

Payed for halowing of the bell named Harry, vj s. viij d. And over 
that, Sir William Symes, Richard Clech, and Mystress Smyth being god- 
faders and godmoder at the consecracyon of the same bell, and beryng all 
other costs to the suffragan. 

“ By the term baptism,” says Magius, “it is not meant that 
bells are baptised with that baptism by which the remission of 
sins is conferred ; the term is used because the principal cere¬ 
monies observed in the baptism of children are observed in 
blessing bells.” This is superfluous as an explanation and in¬ 
adequate as a defence. “ Bells,” says Southey, “are not baptized 
for the remission of sins, because the original sin of a bell would 
be a flaw in the metal, or a defect in the tone, neither of which 
the priest undertakes to remove.” The profanity of the proceed¬ 
ing was in applying the forms of a Christian sacrament to a 
purpose in which there was no correspondence between the out¬ 
ward sign and the inward effect. When the Roman Catholic 
rite was renounced, Protestants went into the opposite extreme, 
and superstition was exchanged for indecorous conviviality. 
White of Selborne, in noticing the high festival which was 
observed in his village at the inauguration of a new peal in 1735, 
states that the treble was fixed bottom upwards and filled with 
punch. This is still the favourite plan, and we cannot help 
thinking that it is a bad beginning to teach the parishioners to 
associate their “church-going bells” with rum and beer. 

Comparatively few of the immense number of baptized bells 


144 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


that were existing at the time of the Reformation still hang in 
their ancient towers, and on these it is often no easy matter to 
trace in the antique and half-corroded characters the once vene¬ 
rated name that was invoked by their sound. A more careful 
search in remote districts might make known several, of which 
no account has been given, though we might hear of none so old 
as that which was taken down from a church in Cornwall in the 
time of the late Mr. Davies Gilbert, the President of the Royal 
Society, and which bore, as he used to relate, with all possible 
pride, the inscription “Alfredus Rex!” It was supposed to have 
been the gift of King Alfred, and to have done duty for a 
thousand years. Multitudes of bells, famous for their tone and 
magnitude, frequently the offerings of wealthy laymen, and in the 
production of which no pains or expense had been spared, were 
taken away at the dissolution of the monasteries. Nor, though 
Holinshed remarks that “bells remain as in times past,” were 
those of the cathedrals and parish churches always spared. King 
Henry VIII., according to Stowe, staked a bell-tower with a lofty 
spire of timber, which stood in St. Paul’s Churchyard and con¬ 
tained four bells, the largest in London, against a hundred pounds, 
with Sir Miles Partridge, a courtier. Sir Miles won, and had 
the bells broken up and the tower and spire pulled down. 
Bulkeley bishop of Bangor sold the bells of his cathedral in 1541; 
and Sir Henry Spelman relates that at the period of his boyhood 
(circa 1572), the people used to tell how many had been removed 
in every part of his county (Norfolk^). The destruction began 
when ecclesiastical property was seized by the Crown and granted 
to laymen. The hundred of Framland, in Leicestershire, affords 
an example of the rarity of genuine antique specimens. Out of 
38 churches, with an aggregate of 127 bells, 88 have been cast 
since 1600; of 16 the date is uncertain, and only 23 are clearly 
of the pre-reformation period. The puritans, though the enemies 
of church music and of almost everything which had once been 
put to ecclesiastical uses, did not wage direct war against bells. 
Yet in the general depredation then committed upon churches, 
the tower was frequently rifled of its contents. The good people 
of Yarmouth petitioned the Parliament in 1650 “to be pleased to 
grant them a part of the lead and other useful materials of that 




CHURCH BELLS. 


145 


vast and altogether useless cathedral in Norwich, towards the 
building of a workhouse to employ their almost starved poor, and 
repairing their piers” When the inhabitants of a neighbouring 
town could propose to strip off the covering from the roof of a 
noble cathedral, and lay it open to the ravages of frost and rain, 
because such edifices were useless, it was not to be expected that 
bells would be valued except for the metal of which they were 
made. In the tasteless apathy which succeeded after the Revo¬ 
lution, the belfry was often robbed to repair the church. Very 
numerous were the instances in which four bells out of five have 
been sold by the parish to defray the churchwardens’ “ little 
account.” Of those that escaped such accumulated dangers, 
several in the lapse of time have been injured and re-cast; and 
altogether the ancient stock has been sadly reduced. 

At Broughton Church, in Northamptonshire, there was an 
ancient bell, upon which (according to a note in Thoroton’s 
Nottinghamshire, ii. 88, Throsby’s edition) was the head of Kin’g 
Henry III., and round the crown of the bell the following 
inscription:— 

Sancte Confessor Christi Benedicte ora pro nobis Deum. 

When Cromwell (whose name be execrated!) demolished the 
church, the bell was removed to the church of Moulton, near 
Northampton, and from thence, in 1795, was brought to Arnold’s 
bell-foundry at Leicester to be re-cast. It weighed twenty- 
seven hundred weight. Mr. Smith, “a gentleman of considerable 
fortune, a curioso in ancient bells,” came to Leicester to see it, 
and said that he knew of only one more of the age in England. 
Down to 1762 the great bell of Ripon Minster was a bell which 
had been brought from Fountains Abbey, to which it had been 
given by an Archbishop of York in the reign of Richard II. The 
second bell was dedicated to St. Wilfrid, the patron of Ripon. 

With Scotland it fared considerably worse than with us. 
Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, told Spelman in 1632 that 
when he was shown the church at Dunbar by a “ crumpt un¬ 
seemly person, the minister thereof,” he inquired how many beiis 
they possessed, to which the minister answered, “ None.” Ilis 
Grace asked how it “chanced,” and the minister replied, with 

L 


146 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


some astonishment at so simple a question, that “it was one of the 
Reformed churches.” In Edinburgh, Abbot found only a single 
relic. All its companions throughout the city had been shipped 
to the Low Countries. In France the Revolution was fatal to 
many of the bells, and so much the more that the metal was 
available for cannon. The celebrated “ George of Amboise,” 
which hung in the cathedral of Rouen, was devoted to that pur¬ 
pose during the sacrilegious delirium when the religion of the 
people might be said to consist in war. 

Some of our old writers delighted to trace the judgments which 
they imagined had descended on the depredators. Spelman ob¬ 
serves significantly that Sir Miles Partridge, who gambled for 
the bells with Henry VIII., was hanged a few years afterwards 
on Tower Hill, and the trafficking Bishop of Bangor was affirmed 
to have been suddenly stricken with blindness when he went to 
see his peal safely shipped. Bad luck attended many of the 
bells themselves, the vessels in which they were embarked having 
been wrecked—it is to be wished that the miracle (if it was such) 
had preserved instead of destroyed the bells. 

The great bell of Exeter is the largest bell rung in a peal in 
England. The whole peal send out over hill and dale a most 
grand and glorious sound. Still many great bells remain 
which are noticeable for antiquity as well as magnitude and 
beauty of tone. The peal of Exeter Cathedral, the heaviest in 
England, is a noble example of the occasional superiority of 
ancient over modern bells in regard to tone. The Exeter peal 
consists of ten bells ; the peal of St. Saviour’s, Southwark, which 
is the next heaviest, numbers twelve, of which nine are upwards 
of four hundred years old. Another peal of twelve, that of 
St. I .eonard’s, Shoreditch, was much admired by Queen Eliza¬ 
beth ; and when they rang out in honour of her approach from 
Hatfield to London, she seldom failed to stop at a short distance 
from the church and commend their melody. There are peals 
of ten bells at St. Margaret’s Church, Leicester, at St. Mary’s, 
Nottingham, and in the tower of Fulham, which are considered 
among the finest in the country. The musical bells of Dewsbury 
are famous even beyond Yorkshire, as “England’s sweetest 
melody.” One of the number, which is popularly known as 


CHURCH BELLS. 


147 


u Black Fom of Sothill,” is said to have been an expiatory gift 
for a murder. It is tolled on Christmas-Eve as at a funeral, and 
this ringing is called “ the devil’s knell,” the moral of it being 
that the devil died when Christ was born. 

It has been computed that in England there are 50 peals of ten 
bells, 360 peals of eight bells, 500 peals of six bells, and 250 peals 
of five bells. The calculations, however, rest upon superficial 
data, and are probably wide of the truth. Eight bells, which 
form the octave or diatonic scale, make the most perfect peal. 
It is a matter of pride to be able to ring a vast variety of changes , 
and these increase enormously with the number of the bells. 
“ This term is used ”—we quote from Mr. Gatty—“ because 
every time the peal is rung round, a change can be made in the 
order of some one bell, thereby causing a change in the suc¬ 
cession of notes. The following numbers are placed to show 
how three bells can ring six changes:— 


1 2 3 

1 3 2 

2 1 3 

2 3 1 

3 1 2 

3 2 l 


Four bells will ring four times as many changes as three, viz. 24; 
five bells five times as many as four, viz. 120; and so on.” The 
progression advances at such a fearful rate that twelve bells will 
give 479,001,600 changes. These, it was calculated by Southey, 
who was fond of the curiosities of the art, would take ninety-one 
years to ring, at the rate of two strokes to a second, or ten rounds 
to a minute. The changes, he continues, upon fourteen bells 
could not be rung through at the same rate in less than 16,575 
years ; and upon four-and-twenty they would require more than 
117,000 billions of years. In practice, bells are rung more than 
twice as quickly as Southey supposes. He has recorded a feat of 
eight Birmingham youths, who managed to get through 14,224 
changes in eight hours and forty-five minutes. Their ambition 
was to have reached a complete peal of “ 15,120 bob major,” but 
they were too exhausted to proceed. “Great, then,” exclaims the 

l 2 


148 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Laureate, in (l The Doctor,” from which we borrow these par¬ 
ticulars, u are the mysteries of bell-ringing,” and mysterious, we 
may add, are its fascinations. Yet one unparalleled enthusiast, 
whose book was printed in 1618, devoted 475 pages to prove 
that the principal employment of the blessed in heaven will be 
the continual ringing of bells. Southey pronounces that the art 
is at least entitled to the praise of being the most harmless of all 
the devices for obtaining distinction by making a noise in the 
world. The justice of the remark, however, is more than doubt¬ 
ful. Bell-ringers as a class have always had the credit, or dis¬ 
credit rather, of being a disorderly set. The fellowship com¬ 
menced in the belfrey conducts to the public-house, all gratuities 
are spent in tippling, and it is a common observation that the 
ringers, after summoning the congregation to church, are prone 
to slip away themselves.* 

To go from peals to single bells, we transcribe a list of the 
largest which exist, or till lately existed, in the world:— 

Tons. cwts. qrs. lbs. 


The Great Bell of Moscow (height 21 ft. 4% in., diameter 
22 ft. 5 in., circumference 67 ft. 4 in., greatest thick - 


ness 23 in.) weighs ..... 

198 

2 

1 

0 

Another cast in 1819 weighs .... 

The bell in the tower of St. Ivan’s Church at Moscow 

80 

0 

0 

0 

(height 21 ft., diameter 18 ft., weight of clapper 4,200 lbs) 
weighs ....... 

57 

1 

1 

16 

Another in the same church weighs 

The Great Bell at Pekin (height 141 ft., diameter 13 ft.) 

17 

16 

0 

0 

weighs ....... 

53 

11 

1 

20 

One at Nankin ...... 

22 

6 

1 

20 

One at Olmutz ...... 

The Great Bell of the Cathedral of Rouen, destroyed 

17 

18 

0 

0 

1793 (height 13 ft., diameter 11 ft.) weighed . 

One at Vienna, cast in 1711 by order of the Emperor 

17 

17 

0 

16 

Joseph, from the cannon left by the Turks when they 
raised the siege of that city (height 10 ft., circum¬ 





ference 31 ft., weight of the clapper 1,100 lbs.), weighs 
One in Notre Dame, in Paris, placed in the Cathedral, 

17 

14 

0 

0 

1680, (circumference 25 ft.,) weighs 

17 

0 

0 

0 


* See some excellent remarks on this subject, and on the abuse of 
Church Bells, in the Ecclesiologist for December, 1856. 


CHURCH BELLS. 


149 


One at Erfurt,* in Germany, and considered to be of the 
finest bell metal extant (height 10? ft., diameter 8£ft.), 

Tons. 

cwts. 

qrs. 

lbs. 

weighs ....... 

One in the Homan Catholic Cathedral at Montreal (cast 

13 

15 

0 

0 

1847), weighs ...... 

“ Great Peter,” which was placed in York Minster in 

13 

10 

0 

0 

1845, weighs ...... 

“ Great Tom ” at Oxford (diameter 7 ft. 1 in., height 6 ft. 

10 

15 

0 

0 

9 in.), weighs ...... 

u Great Tom” at Lincoln f (re-cast in 1835 with an addi¬ 

7 

11 

3 

4 

tional ton of metal), weighs .... 

Great Bell of St. Paul’s (diameter 9 ft., weight of the 

5 

8 

0 

0 

clapper 180 lbs.), weighs . . . . 

5 

2 

1 

22 

Do. Do. before re-cast, weighed 

3 

13 

3 

1 

“ Dunstan” at Canterbury . 

3 

10 

0 

0 


It will be seen that “Great Peter” of York, wliicli has been 
cast since the fine peal in the Minster was destroyed by the fire 
of 1840, is the reigning monarch of all the bells of the United 
Kingdom. It is stated generally that the ordinary price of 
a bell is about six guineas per cwt., but it is probable that the 
rate increases with the size, for “ Great Peter” cost no less than 
two thousand pounds, which was contributed by the citizens of’ 
York. It is many inches higher than the tallest grenadier in her 
Majesty’s service, and requires fifteen men to ring it. A bell 
which once added a glory to the cathedral of Canterbury is said 
to have required twenty-four men to raise it, and another no 
fewer than thirty-two. 

The “ Toms ” of Oxford and Lincoln are supposed by some 

* The great bell of the Domkirche at Erfurt was cast in 1497. It is said 
to be thirty feet in circumference, and Dr. Forbes, in his S‘glit-Seeing in 
Germany , published by Murray, 1856, p. 22, sets down its weight at 286 cwt.., 
including the clapper, and deducting eleven hundred weight for that, his 
figures agree with the statement above. Its proper, christened name is 
Maria Gloriosa, but it is commonly styled the Great Susanna, after an older 
bell bearing this name, which was melted in a great fire in the year 1251. 
This old bell bore the characteristic inscription— 

Die grosse Susanna treibt den teufel von danna. 

(The great Susanna drives the devil hence.) 

f The exact weight of the present bell at Lincoln is 12,096 pounds. 


150 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


to have owed their appellation to the circumstance of their 
giving out a sound which resembled the name, but it has been 
suggested that they were originally christened in the name of 
Thomas, in honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The original 
Oxford bell, which hung, like the present, in the Gate Tower of 
Christchurch, was brought from the abbey of Oseney, and was 
christened Mary at the commencement of the reign of Queen 
Mary, by Tresham the vice-chancellor. “ 0 delicate and sweet 
harmony ! ” he exclaimed, when first it summoned him to mass,— 
“ 0 beautiful Mary! how musically she sounds! how strangely 
she pleaseth my ear ! ” But musically-tongued Mary was re-cast 
in 1680, and has now a voice as masculine as its name, for it is 
neither accurate in its note nor harmonious in sound.* Every 
evening at nine it tolls 101 times, in commemoration of the 
number of scholarships with which the college is endowed. 

The great bell of St. Paul’s, which is one of the most popular 
curiosities in the cathedral, hangs in the south or clock tower, 
above the two bells which sound the quarters. It bears the 
inscription—“Richard Phelps made me 1716.” It is struck 
hourly by the hammer of the clock, but the clapper hangs idle, 
except when its ponderous stroke announces the death or funeral 
of a member of the royal family, a bishop of London, a dean of 
St. Paul’s, or the Lord Mayor of the year. There is an erroneous 
notion that most of its metal was derived from the re-melting of 
“ Great Tom of Westminster,” which, from a clock-tower that 
then stood near the door of the Hall, had sounded the hours for 
four hundred years to the Judges of England. This bell, so replete 
with venerable associations, was given or sold by William III. to 
the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and re-cast by one Wightman. 
It was speedily broken in consequence of the cathedral authorities 
permitting visitors to strike it, on payment of a fee, with an iron 
hammer, and Phelps was employed by Sir Christopher Wren to 
make its fine-toned successor. It was agreed, however, that he 
should not remove the old bell till he delivered the new, and 
thus there is not one single ounce of “ Great Tom ” in the mass. 

* Mr. Denison, M.P., from whose designs the Great Bell for West¬ 
minster has been cast, corroborates this opinion. He says it is the worst 
of all the large bells in the world. 


CHURCH BELLS. 


151 


The latter is destined, after the lapse of a century and a half, to 
have a mighty substitute, for close to its ancient historic site the 
external clock of the New Palace of Westminster is to strike the 
hours on a bell of fifteen tons, and deprive “Great Peter” of 
York of its short-lived pre-eminence. 

But the monster bells of England are mere playthings in com¬ 
parison with the leviathans of Russia. The Czar Kolokol, or 
Monarch, as it is called, is the largest in the world. The value 
of the raw material alone was estimated by Dr. Clarke at 
66,565/. 16s., and by Erman at 350,000/. “Great Peter” of 
York took fourteen days to cool. The molten metal of the Mon¬ 
treal bell was twelve minutes in filling the mould. What must 
have been the process when, instead of some eleven or thirteen 
tons, 198 were employed! It was cast, by the order of the 
Empress Anne, in 1734, from the metal of a gigantic predecessor, 
which had been greatly damaged. The people assert that it was 
once hung aloft, but that the beam from which it was suspended 
being burnt in 1737, it was buried in the earth by the fall, and a 
piece broken out. Dr. Clarke maintained, without sufficient 
reason, that the fall was a fable, that the bell remained in the 
pit in which it was cast, and that the fracture was caused by the 
water, which was employed to extinguish a fire in the building 
above, having flowed upon the metal when it was heated by the 
flames. The Emperor Nicholas had it raised in 1837, and placed 
on a low circular wall. Steps lead into the pit over which it 
hangs: and this excavation of the earth, with the Monarch bell 
for a dome, is consecrated as a chapel. The Czar Kolokol is 
dumb, but the lesser sovereign in the tower of St. Ivan sends out 
its mighty voice three times a year, which produces a tremulous 
effect through the city, and a noise like the rolling of distant 
thunder. The bells in Russia are fixed immoveably to . their 
beams, and it is merely the clapper which swings to and fro. 
This alone in the bell of St. Ivan takes three men to sway it from 
side to side. Barbaric ambition is always pleased with what is 
big, but the tone of the Russian bells is likewise fine, though, as 
the art of harmonious ringing is unknown among them, the prac¬ 
tical result is a confused clashing of sounds, extremely painful to 
English ears. 


152 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


With all the Russian fondness for bells, the permission to 
employ them is a concession which the Czar has never obtained 
for Greek churches within the Ottoman border. Only the rocky 
peninsula of Athos has enjoyed a special privilege, which the 
inhabitants showed not, nor show, any backwardness to exercise. 
Some recent travellers were earnestly entreated by the old sacris¬ 
tan of a monastery, where a tower was just completed, to send 
out an English bell. The period at which ringing commenced 
or ceased in the East has not been ascertained. Cardinal Baro- 
nius says that the Maronites began to use bells in 865, having 
received them from the Venetians; and Matthew Paris states that 
Richard I. was welcomed at Acre with a peal when he landed in 
1190 for his crusade. It is not unlikely, among other prospect¬ 
ive changes, that the church-bell may be allowed to sound its 
summons in conjunction with the muezzin’s call to prayer. 

Enormous as are some of the bells of China, they are inferior 
to the Russian both in size and tone, and the dulness of their 
sound is increased from their being struck with a wooden instead 
of an iron clapper. The Burmese indulge in the almost universal 
taste; and a large specimen, which was taken in the late war from 
the Shewi Dagong pagoda at Rangoon, was valued at 17,000Z. 
But enough of the big bells of the world, which are rather matters 
of idle wonder than use. 

It is a great descent from the Czar Kolokol to those small 
ancient hand-bells, which are connected with the personal history 
of the first apostles of Christianity in Ireland and Britain. They 
are made of a dark bronze, are of a quadrangular form, which 
was probably copied from Roman specimens, and are usually from 
nine to twelve inches in height, and about six in width. Some¬ 
times they are cast in one piece, but in many instances they 
consist of two or three plates riveted together and subsequently 
fused into one mass by a process of founding which is not prac¬ 
tised in the present day. The more perfect specimens are 
remarkable for sweetness of tone, and the distressing note 
given out by others is owing to their being cracked or repaired. 
In the middle ages they were held in such veneration, that they 
were carried about when contributions were raised for the monas¬ 
teries in which they were kept,—they were taken to solemn 


CHURCH BELLS. 


153 


assemblies, oatb was made upon them in judicial trials, and the 
people were more afraid to swear falsely by them than the Gospel, 
expecting that tlie immediate vengeance of the saint would fall 
upon the offender who dared despise his bell. Nay, some are 
used in Ireland to this day for the same purposes as of old—for 
enforcing oaths, honouring funerals, exercising a species of ordeal, 
and for gracing the festivals of the patron-saint of the district. 

Amongst the shadows of bygone times, few are more unsub¬ 
stantial than those of the “ gray fathers ” of the Irish and British 
Church—St. Patrick, St. Kieran, St. Columba, St. Gildas, St. 
David, St. Senanus. Yet, in remote and secluded districts, bells, 
which are repeatedly mentioned in historical manuscripts, have 
come down upon a stream of testimony as having been the iden¬ 
tical instruments used by them at their altars and in their ambu¬ 
latory ministrations. Three are alleged to have had the honour 
of belonging to St. Patrick himself. One of these is said to have 
been in his hands when, on the hill of conflict, the modern 
“ Croagli Patrick,” he had his last encounter with the demons of 
Ireland. Plis violent ringing proved insufficient to scare away 
his adversaries, and he at last flung the bell itself into the midst 
of them, when they fled precipitately, and left the island free 
from their aggressions for seven years, seven months, and seven 
days. The missile, broken by the fall, was afterwards bestowed 
on the patron-saint of Kildare, and called “the Broken Bell of 
Brigid.” It was another bell, we suppose, which is mentioned in 
the “Acta Sanctorum” as having been mended for St. Patrick by 
an angel, and the seam was shown in attestation of the miracle. 
This is like the evidence of the Whig witness in “ The Rambler,” 
who, to prove that the son of James II. was a supposititious child, 
testified that he had seen the warming-pan in which the infant 
had been smuggled to the queen’s bed. 

A second St. Patrick bell became an heirloom of the abbey of 
Armagh, and was employed in 946 by the abbot to measure the 
tribute paid him by a northern tribe, the bell-full of silver being 
given him for his “ Peace,” as successor of the apostle of Ireland. 
The third and most prized of the relics is that known as “the Bell 
of Patrick’s Will.” The breach of an oath taken upon it in 1044 
was affirmed to have been revenged by an incursion in which a 


154 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


large number of prisoners and 1,200 cows were carried away. At 
the commencement of the twelfth century it was encased in a 
costly shrine, embellished with serpents, curiously and elegantly 
interlaced. The custody of it had become hereditary, and formed 
a source of considerable emolument: it appears that a Henry 
Mulholland, who died late in the last century, closed the long line 
down which this relic of ancient art had been conveyed in one 
family through a period of 700 years. The bell itself is much 
corroded, but appears to have been of rude construction. The 
work of the later shrine, however, which was undoubtedly exe¬ 
cuted in the island seventy years before Henry the Second’s army 
landed on the Irish shores, proves that the natives then could 
hardly have been behind their invading neighbours in the arts of 
peace. The bell and its shrine were in the Cork Exhibition in 
1852, and its sound is described as amply sufficient to scare away 
evil spirits, as well as any reptiles except the deaf adder. 

To pass over other less celebrated relics, there is the altar-bell 
of Senanus (a reputed worthy of the early part of the sixth 
century), called the “ Cloghorn ” or the Golden Bell, anciently 
regarded as a Palladium of the county of Clare, and of which 
O’Halloran says in his History of Ireland that the peasantry 
believe to this day that to swear on it falsely would be immedi¬ 
ately punished by convulsions and death. Being supposed to 
be endowed with the further virtue of recovering stolen property, 
it was carried round the country side when anything was lost, in 
order that persons accused might free themselves by taking an 
oath upon it, or stand detected by refusing. These ancient Irish 
hand-bells—reliques contemporary with the Round Towers— 
carry back our thoughts to those harmonious times when England 
and Ireland were bound together by endearing ties; when 
England placed her children under the teaching of the saints of 
Ireland, and Ireland sent forth her missionaries to Christianise 
the British Isles. 

Hand-bells possessing similar virtues, and some of which are 
preserved, were common in Wales. They were held sacred in 
all the Welsh churches previous to the Reformation, and were 
taken round to the house of deceased persons on the day of the 
funeral—a very ancient custom, which is stated by Mr. Westwood 



CHURCH BELLS. 


155 


in his interesting papers published a few years back in the 
“ Archseologia Cambrensis,” to have stood its ground until lately 
at Caerleon. Some specimens which existed in Scotland partially 
retained their hold on popular veneration down to nearly our own 
day, in defiance, as Dr. Wilson remarks, of reforming zeal and 
the discipline of Presbyterian kirk-sessions. Curious superstitions 
were connected with them here, as elsewhere. The bell of St. 
Fillan, which belonged to a famous old chapel at Killin, in 
Perthshire, was affirmed to cure lunacy, a belief which would 
now be deemed of itself an indication of the disease. After the 
patient had dipped in the well or pool of St. Fillan, and passed a 
night in the chapel, the bell (if he survived) was set on his head 
in the morning with great solemnity, and his wits returned. Still 
more extraordinary, it was believed that if this invaluable specific 
was stolen it would extricate itself from the hands of the thief, 
and return from whence it was taken, ringing all the way. The 
same power was attributed to a bell in Leinster. A chieftain of 
Wicklow got possession of it, and he was obliged to tie it with a 
cord to prevent its escaping to its home, at St. Lilian’s church in 
Meath. Clothaire II. (it is Baronius who tells the tale) carried 
off a bell from Soissons, in Burgundy, which resented its removal 
in a more effectual way. It became dumb on the road, and 
when it arrived at Paris its voice was gone. The king sent it 
back to its old quarters, and it no sooner approached the town 
than it recovered its tone and rang so loudly that it was heard 
while yet seven miles distant. At the death of Simone Memmi, 
the great artist, whose life presents many marvellous adventures, 
all the bells of the churches of Pisa tolled spontaneously. The 
event occurred 17th June, 1361. A manuscript of the Lives of 
the Saints of Pisa, shown to A. F. Kio in the library of the 
Convent of St. Katharine, records this legend, and that at his 
funeral a choir of angels chanted the Gloria in Excelsis over the 
altar. An occurrence of recent date would in those days have 
figured among the miracles of the age. On the death of the 
Duke of Wellington, the bells of Trim, which he had represented 
in Parliament, and where he had spent many of his early years, 
were ordered by the Dean to be tolled. The tenor, one of the 
finest and sweetest in Ireland, was no sooner set going than it 


156 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


suddenly broke. On examining tlie bell it was found to liave 
been cast in 1769—the very year tlie Duke was born. So we 
read in 1854. 

An old Sancte-bell still hangs in a few of our churches in the 
bell-cote above the chancel arch. It received its name from being 
always rung at the words Scmcte , sancte, sancte Deus Sabbaoth , as 
the priest elevated the Host, and all who heard it knelt and 
offered a prayer to the Virgin. Most persons have witnessed this 
scene in the streets of Roman Catholic cities, where a hand-bell 
is rung before the priest who carries the sacred elements. Some 
years since in Spain the sound penetrated to the interior of a 
theatre, and not only did all the spectators rise up and kneel, but 
the dancers on the stage stopped in their performance to drop 
upon their knees. 

Of the inscriptions upon bells not very many of early date 
remain. Some Anglo-Saxon bells, which are only known to us 
from history, were dedicated to English saints and confessors, as 
the bell called “Guthlac” at Croyland, and the bells named 
“ Turketul,” “ Betelem,” and “ Bega,” given to the same holy 
site by Turketul’s successor. The oldest of those which still exist 
in England generally bear the name, if not of the Saviour or of 
the Virgin Mary, at least that of an apostle, a martyr, or some 
other saint of special eminence, with the usual addition 14 ora pro 
nobis.” But in later times it became common to couple some 
longer invocation with the name. Thus we find, in uncouth 
Latin, sentiments like tlie following, which we translate for the 
benefit of our fair readers 

J esus, regard this work, and by thy strength prosper it! 

Jesus, who abidest above the stars! heal our wounds. 

May my sound please Thee, O Christ, Heavenly King! 

Christ! give us the joys of eternal life. 

I am the Way and Giver of Life :—give thyself to me. 

Our motion speeds the Redeemer’s praise. 

An old bell at Thirsk bears the inscription— 

In the name of Jesus I call, sounding Mary in the world. 

The bells dedicated to the Virgin have such labels as these— 


CHURCH BELLS. 


157 


I am called Mary : I disperse tlie storms, scatter enemies, and drive away 
demons. 

I sound in the world the name of Mary. 

I am called Mary, and sound the Rose of the World. 

O crowned Virgin! I will proclaim thee blessed. 

O Mary! by thy prayers protect those whom I call together. 

On bells in honour of St. Michael we find, 

I laud in holy tones him who broke the sceptre of the dragon. 

May the Creator associate us with the angels! 

On a bell in honour of All Saints, 

Govern us, O God! and unite us to Thy saints. 

On a bell in honour of St. Katharine, 

In this assembly I sound sweetly the name of Katharine. 

There are many bells dedicated in the names of St. Peter and 
St. Paul ; and on one of them is the epigraph 

The bell of Peter sounds for the name of Christ. 

The bell of the great Minster of Schaffhausen, and another in a 
church near Lucerne, proclaim that they “ mourn at funerals, 
disperse storms, honour festivals, excite the tardy, and pacify the 
turbulent.” The monkish jingle to the same effect was a common 
inscription in the middle ages:— 

Funera plango, Fulgura frango, Sabbata pango, 

Excito lentos, Dissipo ventos, Paco cruentos. 

In a few instances the words were deemed, for what reason we 
cannot perceive, a charm against fire, as was the case with the 
inscription on the great bell of the priory of Kenilworth, pre¬ 
served by Dugdale:— 

May a healthy and willing mind, freedom for our country, and the peace 
of Michael and the Angels, be given by Heaven to this house for the honour 
of God. 

An actual fire-bell (cast 1652) in the church of Sherborne has 
upon it the distich— 

Lord! quench this furious flame; 

Arise, run, help, put out the same. 


158 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


A local poet seems to have resided about this period in the town, 
for in the same tower a bell, re-cast in 1670 from one which was 
said to have been brought by Cardinal Wolsey from iournay, 
has a second couplet, which bears a strong resemblance to the 
first in style :— 

By Wolsey’s gift I measure time for all; 

To mirth, to grief, to church, I serve to call. 

The original Great Tom of Lincoln (1610) announced that it 
was dedicated “to sound sweetly unto salvation, of the Holy 
Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.” A bell in 
Carlisle Cathedral, dated 1667, has this exhortation:— 

I warn ye how your time passes away. Serve God, therefore, while life 
doth last, and sav Gloria in Excelsis Deo! 

The great bell of Glasgow Cathedral (1790) bears a wordy 
inscription characteristic of Scotch divines, but though somewhat 
lengthy, it has a redeeming conclusion:— 

In the year of grace 1594, Marcus Knox, a merchant in Glasgow, zealous 
for the interests of the reformed religion, caused me to be fabricated in 
Holland for the use of his fellow-citizens of Glasgow, and placed me with 
solemnity in the tower of their cathedral. My function was announced by 
the impress on my bosom—“ Ye who hear me, come to learn of holy doc¬ 
trine ; ” and I was taught to proclaim the hours of unheeded time. One 
hundred and ninety-five years had I sounded these awful warnings, when I 
was broken by the hands of inconsiderate and unskilful men. In the year 
1790 I was cast into the furnace, refounded at London, and returned to my 
sacred vocation. Reader! thou also shalt know a resurrection—may it be 
unto eternal life! 

If there was no peculiar felicity in the old inscriptions, they 
were usually reverent. Here and there we meet with an excep¬ 
tion, as in the case of “Great Tom” of Oxford, which, before it 
was re-cast in 1680, had an epigraph to the effect that in the 
praise of St. Thomas it rang out “ Bim Bom.” The great bell 
at Rouen bore a miserable stanza, which has been translated by 
Weever into verse that is not a great deal worse than the 
original:— 


CHURCH BELLS. 


159 


Je suis George d’Ambois, 

Qui ai trente-cinque mille pois ; 

Mais lui qui me pesera 
Trente-six mille me trouvera. 

I am George of Ambois, 

Thirty-five thousand in pois; 

But he that shall weigh me 
Thirty-six thousand shall find me. 

In those days the ecclesiastics devised the inscriptions; but later, 
when the churchwarden who ordered the bell also settled the 
label, we must expect to find the most ridiculous specimens of 
parochial poetry. Thus at St. Mary’s, Bentley, in Hampshire, 
where there are six hells, No. 1 (1703) is inscribed— 

John Eyer gave twenty pound 
To meek mee a losty sound. 

On No. 5 we have, 

Unto the church I do you call, 

Death to the grave will summons all. 

On another, 

Thomas Eyer and John Winslade did contrive 
To cast from four bells this peale of five. 

On a bell at Binstead, one of a peal of five,— 

Doctor Nicholas gave five pound 
To help cast this peal tuneabel and sound. 

On another, 

Samuel Knight made this ring 
In Binstead steeple for to ding. 1695. 

On a bell at Bradfield church in Berkshire, 

At proper times my voice I’ll raise, 

And sound to my subscribers’ praise. 

Nothing is too low or ludicrous for rustic tastes, and the same 
sort of genius which loves to embellish the leads and benches of 
the church with facsimiles of the soles of heavy shoes, bearing in 
the centre the name and age of the wearer, with the date of his 


160 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


carving, is equally visible in the inscriptions on bells and the 
epitaphs upon gravestones. 

It may be presumed that the earliest use of bells in churches 
was to summon the congregation ; but superstition soon enlisted 
them into her service. It then became customary at their con¬ 
secration to pray that they might be endowed with power to 
drive away devils, and dissipate thunderstorms, hail, and tem¬ 
pests.* In the opinion of those who originated the practice, the 
evil spirits were the cause of foul weather, and, being terrified 
at the saintly sound of the bells, they precipitately fled. “For 
this reason,” to give the strange delusion in the words of the 
eminent ritualist Durandus, “the church, when a tempest is seen 
to arise, rings the bells, that the fiends, hearing the trumpets of 
the eternal King, may flee away, and cease from raising the 
storm.” When he wrote this, in 1286, the belief had already 
existed for centuries, and Magius centuries afterwards gravely 
discussed and resolved in the affirmative the questions, whether 
it is the fiends that brew the tempests, and whether church-bells 
will put to rout the fiends. “ With a consciousness of power (to 
use the language of a distinguished Roman Catholic writer) the 
church commits to the iron-tongued herald the office of dispelling 
by its voice the snares of the enemy, the stroke of the lightning, 
the shock of the tempest, and prays that the spirits of evil may 
tremble and fly at its sound.” It was under the idea of shielding 
from evil her holy places and her worshippers that the church 
consecrated her bells. There was a rich poetry in the rite ; the 
bell was hallowed with words full of the faith and fervour of 
ancient liturgical offices, and with ceremonies full of symbolical 
meaning. And when upon the festivals of the Church the voice 
of the bell is heard, it is a joyful reflection to the churchman 
that as surely as the impulse of the tide-wave is felt to the 
remotest seas, so surely do the vibrations of the bell stir with a 

* On some of the old bells the expression “ I drive away pestilence ” 
occurs. In this case, perhaps, the influence was ascribed (by some at least) 
to natural and not to spiritual causes, for we read among the rules of 
Dr. Herring, against “pestilentiall contagion” in 1625,—“Let the bells in 
cities and townes be rung often, and the great ordnance discharged; thereby 
the air is purified.” 


CHURCH BELLS. 


161 


common impulse, and throughout the world the hearts of the 
faithful who hear its sound. There are numerous allusions to the 
practice in ancient manuscripts ; and in parish accounts in the 
fifteenth century, bread, cheese, and beer are charged for the 
refreshment of the ringers during “ thunderings.” It was one of 
the “ fooleries” which Latimer denounced at the Reformation in 
the style of argument which has never been surpassed for its 
adaptation to the tastes and comprehension of illiterate hearers. 
u T e know, ’ he said, “ when there was a storm or fearful weather, 
then we rung the holy bells: they were they that must make all 
things well; they must drive away the devil! But I tell you, if 
the holy bells would serve against the devil, or that he might be 
put away through their sound, no doubt we would soon banish 
him out of all England; for I think, if all the bells in England 
should be rung together at a certain hour, there would be almost 
no place but some bells might be heard there, and so the devil 
should have no abiding-place in England.” No disease of the 
body is more hereditary and inveterate than these disorders of the 
mind. The Bishop of Chalons christened a peal not many years 
since, and in a sermon which he pronounced on the occasion 
enforced the “ fooleries” which Latimer had laughed away. 
“ The bells,” said he, “ placed like sentinels on the towers, watch 
over us, and turn away from us the temptations of the enemy of 
our salvation, as well as storms and tempests. They speak and 
pray for us in our troubles; they inform Heaven of the necessity 
of earth.” If this be true, there is more virtue in the clapper of 
a bell than in the tongue of a prelate. So late as 1852, the 
Bishop of Malta ordered all the church-bells to be rung for an 
hour to allay a gale. The custom continues to flourish to this 
day in many parts of the Continent, and may not impossibly 
endure while a tower, a bell, and a similar superstition can be 
found collected on the same spot. 

In many places the practice was kept up from mere habit when 
the superstition had ceased, there having grown up in lieu thereof 
a notion that the ringing of bells dispersed storms or kept them at 
a distance by vibration of the air. An event which occurred in 
Britany in 1718 convinced plnlosophers that the means employed 
to drive away the lightning was singularly efficacious in drawing 


162 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


it down. A great storm arose on the coasts. The bells were 
rung in twenty-four churches, every one of which was struck, 
whereas all the towers which held their tongues were spared. 
M. Arago has boldly questioned the conclusiveness of the evidence. 
He remarks that storms sometimes travel in long and narrow 
zones, that the specified churches may have occupied just such a 
strip, that the injuries done to the ringers would make a deep 
impression, while the slight cracks and displaced bits of plaster in 
neighbouring edifices, which were equally scathed, would pass 
unobserved. The story indeed proves too much. If the light¬ 
ning picked out the towers where the bells were rung in this 
complete and unerring manner, a usage which had prevailed for 
centuries must have destroyed half the churches and ringers in 
the world. A single circumstance explains the tale. The storm 
happened on Good Friday, when not a bell is permitted to sound. 
Some accident occurred, and the people at once exclaimed that it 
was a judgment for infringing the precepts of the Church: the 
rest was the exaggeration of ignorance and superstition, ever 
ready to make a marvel. In 1769 the tower of Passy was struck 
during the ringing of the protecting peal, and again much was 
said of the mischief of the system ; but this example was in 
direct contradiction to the legend of Britany, for two other 
neighbouring towers within the limits of the storm, in which the 
bells were set going, remained untouched. The general result 
was, that educated people denounced the plan, and Roman 
Catholic ecclesiastics and the lower orders persevered in patron¬ 
ising it. The secular authorities interposed in some parts of 
Europe to put it down. The King of Prussia directed an 
ordinance, prohibiting the practice, to be read in 1783 in all the 
churches of his dominions, and the same was done in the 
Palatinate and several dioceses in France. The Prefect of 
Dordogne found it necessary in 1844 to repeat the order ; and, to 
prove that pretended science can be as blind to evidence as 
superstition itself, he assured the people that to ring the bells 
was “ an infallible method of causing the lightning to strike/’ 
Whether these agitations of the air have any effect at all upon 
tempests, is considered by M. Arago to be still undecided. It 
was till lately the usage in particular districts of France to fire 


CHURCH BELLS. 


163 


small cannon or mortars to ward off such storms of hail and rain 
as would be destructive to the crops. The method was thought 
to be efficacious by those who tried it, and to indemnify them 
abundantly for the powder they expended. The few observations, 
however, of military men rather tend to the conclusion that the 
roar of artillery is without influence upon the weather, and, if 
cannon are ineffective, it would go far to show that no result has 
been produced by the comparatively feeble though more continu¬ 
ous sound of bells. On one point at least M. Arago is decided— 
that it has never been demonstrated that they increase the danger. 
In no single instance is there any valid reason to suppose that ring¬ 
ing has brought down lightning upon buildings which would other¬ 
wise have escaped. But it has been pointed out that the ringers, 
nevertheless, are in a perilous position. As the highest objects 
are commonly struck, church-towers offer a prominent mark; the 
rope, moistened by the humid atmosphere, is a powerful conductor, 
and the charge is lodged in the man at the end of it. If no 
one is present, and the rope is left hanging, as is usually the case, 
at a certain distance from the ground, it is possible for the light¬ 
ning to make the circuit of the loop at the extremity, and return 
by the way it came, without leaving within the tower any trace 
of its visit. A German savant said he had found that in the 
space of thirty-three years 386 towers had been damaged and 121 
ringers killed. The same flash being constantly fatal to more 
than one of the company, the total of deaths is not the measure of 
the number of churches which were struck during a peal. In 
1755 three ringers were killed in a belfry, together with four 
children who were standing underneath. In 1768 a flash was 
fatal to two men in a church-tower in Dauphine, and wounded 
nine more. It is therefore evident that, if bells have any power 
whatever over storms, it is not sufficiently rapid or marked to 
counterbalance the risk of the ringers. 

After the discovery had been made of the potency of bells in 
terrifying spirits, they were naturally employed in all the matters 
in which fiends were reputed to interfere. It was the weapon 
with which St. Anthony fought the legion of demons who tor¬ 
mented him during his long eremitical life, and in the figures 
which were drawn of him during the middle ages he is repre- 

M 2 


164 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


sented as carrying a bell in bis band, or suspended from bis stafL 
Tbe passing-bell, wbicb was formerly tolled for those who were 
dying, or passing out of tbe world, as well as tbe peal wbicb was 
rung after their death, grew out of tbe belief that devils troubled 
tbe expiring patient, and lay in wait to afflict tbe soul at tbe 
moment when it escaped from tbe body ; yea, occasionally even 
to do battle for it with good or guardian angels—a scene, by tbe 
way, given in apparently tbe oldest remains of Etrurian, if not of 
Egyptian art. Tbe tolling of tbe passing-bell was retained at 
tbe Reformation, and the people were instructed that its use was 
to admonish tbe living and excite them to pray for tbe dying. 
To discourage tbe fancy that demons could assault the liberated 
soul, or that tbe jingling of bells would deter them from tlieir 
purpose, only a single short peal was to be rung after death. In 
tbe articles of inquiry in different dioceses at various periods, 
inquisition is made both as to keeping up tbe practice of tolling 
tbe passing-bell, and tbe discontinuance of tbe former superstitious 
ringing. Tbe injunction began to be neglected towards the close 
of tbe seventeenth century, and by tbe beginning of tbe eight¬ 
eenth tbe passing-bell, in tbe proper sense of tbe term, bad almost 
ceased to be beard. Tbe tolling, indeed, continued in tbe old 
fashion, but it took place after tbe death instead of before. Tbe 
short peal that was once tbe peculiar signal to announce that some 
mortal had put on immortality is still rung in many places as tbe 
prelude or tbe conclusion to tbe tolling, though it lias no longer 
any meaning. It is less surprising that tbe usage should have 
been given up than that it should have lasted so long. It must 
often have been a bitter pang to relations to order tbe doom of 
those to be sounded whose lives were dearer to them than their 
own, and an aggravation of their misery to have their ears, as they 
sat by tbe dying bed, filled with tbe sorrowful knell. It must 
frequently have dismayed tbe patients themselves, and hastened, 
if it did not sometimes cause, tbe event it foretold. Nelson said 
of tbe dying Christian, in bis “Fasts and Festivals” (1732), that, 
“ should bis senses bold out so long, be can bear even bis passing- 
bell without disturbance.” Such was tbe case with Lady Cathe¬ 
rine Grey, who died in tbe Tower in 1567. Tbe question of tbe 
Governor to one of the attendants—“ Were it not best to send to 


CHURCH BELLS. 


165 


the church that the bell may be rung?”—caught her ear, and she 
herself answered, “ Good Sir Owen, let it be so.” A Mrs. Margaret 
Duck, who departed this life in 1646, on finding her end draw 
near, summoned her family to take leave of her, and then gave 
orders herself for the bell to give out its warning note. But these 
were the minority, and many felt more like the swearer mentioned 
in the “ Anatomy of Abuses,” who, “hearing the bell toll for him, 
rushed up in his bed very vehemently.” Now and then, in spite 
of the bell, the patient recovered, and of this old Fuller gives a 
curious instance. His father called upon Dr. Fenton, a divine, 
who, after some conversation, apologised for leaving him. “ Mr. 
Fuller,” said he, “hear how the passing-bell tolls for my dear 
friend Dr. Felton, now a-dying ; I must to my study, it being 
mutually agreed upon betwixt us in our healths that the survivor 
of us should preach that other’s funeral-sermon.” But “ my dear 
friend Dr. Felton, now a-dying,” recovered, and lived ten years 
after he had preached, in fulfilment of the compact, the funeral- 
sermon of Dr. Fenton ! 

Whatever was the origin of the curfew, or couvre-feu, which 
was rung at eight o’clock as a signal for the inhabitants to put 
out their fires and go to bed, its object, as far as it can be traced, 
was exclusively social or political, and not religious. The intro¬ 
duction of the practice into England is usually ascribed to 
William the Conqueror, and the most plausible conjecture as to 
its purpose is, that it was to diminish the risk of extensive con¬ 
flagrations at a period when houses were principally of wood. 
Milton has described it in a couplet sonorous and musical as the 
bell itself:— 

On a plat of rising ground, 

I hear the far-off curfew sound, 

Over some wide-watered shore , 

Swinging slow , with solemn roar. 

It is an instance of the tenacity with which we cling to a practice 
once established, that, though for centuries its only use has been 
“ to toll the knell of parting day,” it continues to be rung wher¬ 
ever there are funds to pay the ringer, and few who have been 
accustomed to its sound would not feel, if it was hushed, that a 
soothing sentiment had been taken out of their lives. 


166 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


The manifold other purposes to which bells are applied are too 
familiar for description. They are the appointed voice of public 
rejoicing, and sound for every festive event. They ring in the 
new year, the new sovereign, the new mayor, the new squire,- and 
the new rector; for hope is stronger than memory, expectation 
than gratitude, and the multitude feel that their life is in the 
future and not in the past. Often the peal breaks forth on un¬ 
worthy, and in the last generation was sometimes employed on 
shameful, occasions. Mr. Brand had known it called into requi¬ 
sition to celebrate the winning of a “long main*’ at cock-fighting. 
But the commonest application of its merry music is to proclaim 
that two lovers have just been made happy. “Well is it,” says 
Mr. Gatty, “when all continues to go 

Merry as a marriage bell. 

Alas! we have known sequels to such a beginning, with which 
the knell had been more in unison! ” So thought one Thomas 
Nash,* who in 1813 bequeathed fifty pounds a-year to the ringers 
of the Abbey Church, Bath, “on condition of their ringing on the 
whole peal of bells, with clappers muffled, various solemn and 
doleful changes on the 14th of May in every year, being the anni¬ 
versary of my wedding-day; and also the anniversary of my 
decease to ring a grand bob-major, and merry mirthful peals 
unmuffled, in joyful commemoration of my happy release from 
domestic tyranny and wretchedness.” 

Passing from the realities of tangible bells, we may advert for 

* In the days of his namesake all the visitors to the city were welcomed 
by a peal from the Abbey, a compliment which cost them half-a-guinea. The 
company, thus apprised of every fresh arrival, used to send and inquire for 
whom the bells rang. Anstey describes the practice in his “New Bath 
Guide — 

“ No city, dear mother, this city excels 
In charming sweet sounds both of fiddles and bells. 

I thought, like a fool, that they only would ring 
For a wedding, a judge, or the birth of a king ; 

But I found ’twas for me that the good-natured people 
Bung so hard that I thought they would pull down the steeple ; 

So I took out my purse, as I hate to be shabby, 

And paid all the men when they came from the Abbey.” 


CHURCH BELLS. 


167 


a moment to the stories which belong to the regions of illusion or 
romance. Uhland refers to one of these traditions in his poem 
of “ The Lost Church,” which Lord Lindsay, whose translation 
we quote, supposes to have been founded on an ancient tradition 
of the Sinaitic peninsula:— 

Oft in the forest far one hears 
A passing sound of distant bells ; 

Nor legends old nor human wit 
Can tell us whence the music swells. 

From the Lost Church ’tis thought that soft 
Faint ringing cometh on the wind : 

Once, many pilgrims trod the path, 

But no one now the way can find. 

Similar legends of churches swallowed up, and of their bells 
sending out their wonted music on certain occasions from the 
depths of the earth, are attached to several localities. At a place 
called Fisherty-Brow, near Kirkby Lonsdale, there is a sort of 
natural basin, where, according to the superstitio loci , a church, 
the clergyman, and the congregation were engulfed, and here the 
bells may be heard ringing on a Sunday morning by any one 
who puts his ear to the ground. A like fate was said to have 
befallen the entire village of Raleigh, in Nottinghamshire; and 
it was formerly the custom for the inhabitants on Christmas 
morning to go out to the valley and listen to the mysterious 
chimes of their lost parish church. According to a tradition at 
Tunstall, in Norfolk, the churchwardens and parson disputed for 
the possession of some bells which had become useless because the 
tower was burnt. While the quarrel was in progress the arch¬ 
fiend stepped in and carried off the bells. The parson pursued 
him with hot haste and much Latin, but the evil one dived into 
the earth with his ponderous burden, and the place where he 
disappeared is marked by a boggy pool, popularly known by the 
name of Hell-hole. Notwithstanding the aversion of the powers 
of darkness to such sounds, even these bells are sometimes per¬ 
mitted to favour their native place with a ghostly peal. Many 
more such traditions, slightly varied, exist both here and abroad. 

But with none of these subterranean bells does tradition connect 
such a legend as that of the Silver Bell of Velmich on the Rhine. 


168 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


This bell is said to have been given by a Bisliop of Mayence, in 
a.d. 740, to the cliurcli of tliat sequestered spot, and to have been 
sacrilegiously taken away from the sacred building by a lord of 
the adjacent fortress, who is represented as a monster of wicked¬ 
ness. A priest came to demand its restoration, but he tied it 
round the neck of the holy man, and threw him into the oubliette 
below the tower, over which he placed a quantity of stones. The 
baron a few days afterwards lay upon his death-bed, and as his 
end approached, the tones of the bell were heard with terror 
sounding from the depths. Ever since his death they have con¬ 
tinued to be heard on the anniversary of his decease. 

None of these histories of phantom bells, whose voice has come 
“ upon the wind,” can be more remarkable than the circumstance 
related by the ever-agreeable author of “Eothen.” He was travel¬ 
ling, seated on his camel, in the desert, and, having closed his eyes 
against the fierce glare, he gradually fell asleep. 

“ After a while,” he says, “ I was gently awakened by a peal of church 
bells—my native bells—the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before 
sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills! I roused myself and 
drew aside the silk that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into 
the light. Then, at least, I was well enough wakened; but still those old 
LVlarlen bells rang on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily, steadily, 
yet merrily ringing ‘for church!’ After a while the sound died away 
slowly ; it happened that neither I nor any of my party had a watch by 
which to measure the exact time of its lasting, but it seemed to me that 
about ten minutes had passed before the bells ceased. I attributed the 
effect to the great heat of the sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air 
through which I moved, and the deep stillness of all around us; it seemed 
to me that these causes, by occasioning a great tension and consequent sus¬ 
ceptibility of the hearing organs, had rendered them liable to tingle under 
the passing touch of some mere memory that must have swept across my 
brain in a moment of sleep. Since my return to England, it has been told 
me that like sounds have been heard at sea; and that the sailor becalmed 
under the vertical sun in the midst of the wide ocean has listened in trem¬ 
bling wonder to the chime of his own village bells. Referring to my journal, 
I found that the day was Sunday, and, roughly allowing for the difference 
of longitude, I concluded that, at the moment of my hearing that strange 
peal, the church-going bells of Marlen must have been actually calling the 
prim congregation of the parish to morning prayer ! I could not allow myself 
a hope that that what I had experienced was anything other than an illusion. 
It would have been sweeter to believe that my kneeling mother, by some 




CHURCH BELLS. 


169 


pious enchantment, had asked and found this spell to rouse me from my 
forgetfulness of God’s holy day.” 

It was impossible in Mr. Kinglake’s case that the ringing in his 
ears could be caused by actual bells; but at sea, where there is a 
wide unbroken expanse, with nothing to check the sound until it 
is reflected to the ears of the crew from the sails, a peal, in a 
favourable state of atmosphere and wind, is sometimes heard 
at an enormous distance. A ship’s company could distinctly dis¬ 
tinguish the bells of Rio Janeiro when they were seventy miles 
from the coast. 

When ships go down in a tempest a warning bell is said to be 
heard amid the storm: and on land it is no uncommon notion that 
its prophetic tongue will sometimes announce to persons who are 
about to die their impending doom. 

The death-bell thrice was heard to rino-. 

An aerial voice was heard to call, 

And thrice the raven flapp’d its wing 
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall. 

Rogers, in his lines on an “ Old Oak,” alludes to the same 
superstition:— 

There, once, the steel-clad knight reclined, 

His sable plumage tempest-toss’d ; 

And as the death-bell smote the wind 

From towers long fled by human kind, 

His brow the hero cross’d. 

Until its cause was discovered no sound could have seemed 
more supernatural than the note of the Campanero, or Bell-bird 
of Demerara, which is of snowy whiteness, and about the size of 
a jay. A tube, nearly three inches long, rises from its forehead, 
and this feathery spire the bird can fill with air at pleasure. 
Every four or five minutes in the depths of the forest its call may 
be heard from a distance of three miles, making a tolling noise 
like that of a convent-bell. What a tale of wonder might have 
been founded on such sounds in such a wilderness! 

The pleasant story of the Bells of Bow bringing back the poor 
runaway apprentice by their cheering burthen— 

Turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London,— 


170 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


seems to belong to the fabulous part of our subject; but it has 
perhaps, after all, a substratum of truth, and indicates a dispo¬ 
sition, of which there are other traces, to interpret the language 
of the belfry by the wishes of the heart. There is an anecdote 
told in many old books of a rich and well-born dame who had 
fallen in love with her valet, consulting a priest upon the expe¬ 
diency of taking the dear man for her husband. The priest bid 
her listen to the bells and foll&w their direction. With unmis- 
takeable distinctness they pealed forth in her ears, i( Marry your 
valet , marry your valet , marry your valet.” A few weeks after¬ 
wards she re-appeared before her father confessor, told him of the 
misery of the match, and complained that the bells had misled 
her. “It is you,” replied he, “that must have misinterpreted 
the bells: go and listen again.” She went accordingly, and this 
time they said, with vehement perspicuity, “Don't marry your 
valet, don’t marry your valet, don’t marry your valet.” 

From the nature of the associations connected with them, as 
well as from their inherent charm, it is no wonder that bells 
should have exerted an influence on the mind in every age and 
clime. 

What music is there that compared may be 

With well-tuned bells’ enchanting melody ? 

Breaking with their sweet sounds the willing air. 

They in the listening ear the soul ensnare. 

These lines, which are inscribed in the belfry of St. Peter’s 
Church at Shaftesbury, first made Bowles in love with poetry. 
“ The enchanting melody” had an Orpheus-like power over the 
rude pedantry of Dr. Parr. He once conceived the design of 
treating at large upon Campanology, and many and pressing were 
the calls upon the pockets of his friends for the peal at Hatton. 
On going to reside he made several changes, and he specifies as 
one of them, that “ Bells chime three times as long.” Even the 
soul of the conqueror who had devastated Europe was stirred in 
its inmost depths by the simple sound. “ When we were at 
Malmaison,” says Bourrienne of Napoleon, “ how often has the 
booming of the village bell broken off the most interesting con¬ 
versations ! He stopped, lest the moving of our feet might cause 
the loss of a single beat of the tones which charmed him. The 


CHURCH BELLS. 


171 


influence, indeed, was so powerful that his voice trembled with 
emotion while he said, c That recalls to me the first years I passed 
at Brienne.’ ” Kone have more reason to be affected by the asso¬ 
ciations which bring back the days of comparative innocence and 
peace than the troubled spirits who are entangled in the labyrinths 
of a guilty ambition. But of all the instances of the power of 
bells “to touch a sympathetic chord of the heart,” the most 
moving is the tradition told in connection with the peal of Lime¬ 
rick Cathedral. It is said to have been brought from a convent 
in Italy, for which it had been manufactured by an enthusiastic 
native, with great labour and skill. The Italian, having after¬ 
wards acquired a competency, fixed his home near the convent 
cliff, and for many years enjoyed the daily chime of his beloved 
bells. But in some political convulsion which ensued the monks 
were driven from their monastery, the Italian from his home, and 
the bells were carried away to another land. After a long interval 
the course of his wanderings brought him to Limerick. On a 
calm and beautiful evening, as the vessel which bore him floated 
along the broad stream of the Shannon, he suddenly heard the 
bells peal forth from the cathedral tower. They were the long- 
lost treasures of his memory. Home, happiness, friends—all early 
recollections were in their sound. Crossing his arms on his breast, 
he lay back in the boat. When the rowers looked round they saw 
his face still turned to the cathedral—but his eyes had closed for 
ever on the world. 

And though the tones may not be familiar, and may not 
waken any slumbering memory “ of youth and home,” 

The bells and chimes of Motherland, 

Of England green and old, 

That out from gray and ivied tower 
A thousand years have toll’d, 

Brins with their sound a thousand tales, 

Sweet tales of olden time, 

And wake our holiest memories 
With their sweet soothing chime. 


THE STONE OF DESTINY. 




[Colburn’s “New Monthly Magazine,” February, 1857.] 

The time-lionoured coronation-stone inclosed within Saint 
Edward’s chair, in Westminster Abbey, is one of the most 
remarkable of our historical monuments, and the belief connected 
with it is one of the curiosities of British history. The known 
pedigree of the stone carries it back for nearly a thousand years, 
and tradition surrounds it with a haze of mystery and legend, and 
refers its origin to a most remote antiquity. 

The stone upon which the patriarch Jacob rested his head at 
Bethel, and which he afterwards set up for a monument, as 
described in the twenty-eighth chapter of the book of Genesis, has 
been regarded as the prototype of the stone monuments which 
were erected by the most ancient nations in the world, either for 
purposes of memorial or for national solemnities. Many passages of 
holy scripture show that a stone monument was dedicated to the 
anointing of kings ; and from the East the custom was adopted 
by Celtic and Scandinavian nations. The ancient coronation- 
stone of Anglo-Saxon kings, which is preserved at Kingston- 
upon-Thames; the Meini Gwyr, upon which proclamations are 
made in the market-place of St. Austell; and some similar 
monuments that might be mentioned, are examples of the descent 
of that custom to our own country. But the mediaeval legends 
and popular belief connected with the coronation-stone in West¬ 
minster Abbey, assert that national relic to be Jacob’s Pillar 
itself; and the patriotic romances of some old Scotish chroniclers 
represent this stone to have come to Europe through the Phoeni¬ 
cian colonisation of Spain, and to have been thence derived by 





THE STONE OF DESTINY. 


173 


Ireland with the first of her Ibero-Celtic monarchs, and from 
them to have come to Caledonia. 

To seek an historical foundation for a legend of this nature 
would be to embark upon an ocean of uncertainty in the mists of 
tradition; but it may be interesting to see how far the existence of 
this national relic, and of the curious belief connected with it, is 
carried back by authentic history. And here it may be observed, 
that the fact of the south-western coasts of Ireland and those of 
Spain having been colonised at a remote period by a cognate 
race of Eastern origin ; the fact of Phoenicians, if not Jews, 
having anciently settled in those parts of Europe; and the fact of 
the stone in question corresponding mineralogically to a sienite 
found in Egypt, are facts which, as far as they go, afford some 
countenance to the legend connected with it. 

But if we turn to existing traditions in the East, we find that 
legend to be in conflict with them; for Jacob’s Pillar—which is 
said to have been removed from Bethel by the tribe of Joseph— 
is believed by the Mahometans (according to Calmet) to be pre¬ 
served in that ancient building which is known as the Mosque of 
Omar. The sacred rock covered by the dome is a celebrated 
object of Moslem tradition and devotion. Dr. Robinson says that 
the Christians of the middle ages regarded it as the stone on 
which Jacob slept when he saw the vision of angels, and as the 
stone of prophecy; and it is at this day known as A1 Sakra, or 
the stone of unction. There is a strange belief connected with 
the well or hollow beneath this long-venerated rock, for there the 
souls of the departed are believed to rest between death and 
resurrection, and there it was thought the living might hold con¬ 
verse with the dead. But although in Eastern tradition, both 
Christian and Mussulman, supernatural attributes are connected 
with this object, it is difficult to identify it with the pillar set up 
by the patriarch; and in truth the European tradition of the 
Stone of Destiny ascends to an elder source, and avers that it— 
the real stone of prophecy—had left Judaea long before the de¬ 
struction of Jerusalem. At all events, authentic Jewish history 
does not, so far as we know, connect with the sacred rock in 
honour of which the dome was built a prophecy or belief resem¬ 
bling that which is connected with the coronation-stone, 
o 


174 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


But an Irish tradition derived by us through Scotland, and 
which first makes its appearance in the old traditions of Ireland, 
avers that the rock or pillar of Jacob, to the possession of which 
by a certain tribe destiny annexed the sceptre of the kingdom in 
which it should rest, was brought from Judosa to Spain by a 
chieftain or patriarch who founded a kingdom there, and was 
taken from that country to Ireland by the king or chief of the 
Scoti—a very ancient people, who were undoubtedly in possession 
of the island at the time of the introduction of Christianity, and 
to whom some historians attribute a Phoenician origin. Accord¬ 
ing to the legend, this conqueror —a very mythical personage, by- 
the-by—was contemporary with Romulus and Remus, and came 
to Ireland with the Stone of Destiny to found his kingdom, about 
the time of the foundation of Rome, or seven hundred and fifty 
years before Christ. It was a thousand years before, according 
to Biblical chronology, when the King of Kings promised to Jacob 
the land on which he set up the stone of Bethel, and dominion to 
his posterity through all the world. 

Now a fatal stone, regarded as a kind of national palladium, is 
mentioned in Irish manuscripts of the sixth century of our era, by 
the name of the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny; and that a stone 
which stood upon the Hill of Tara, and was used at the inaugu¬ 
ration of the Irish kings, and was known as the Labheireg, or 
Stone of Destiny, existed in a.d. 560, appears from the fact that 
the stone and the hill itself fell in that year under the anathema 
of the Christian clergy; the stone (according to Sir John Ware, 
in his “ Antiquities of Ireland ”) having been honoured as a kind 
of national palladium before the conversion of the natives, and 
having become a focus of heathen superstitions. A very ancient pro¬ 
phetical verse referring to this stone is said to exist in the old Irish 
language, in a manuscript of the sixth century, and is to the effect 
that the Lia Fail shall accompany the sceptre of the kingdom. 
This prophetical verse is referred by Borlase, in his “Antiquities 
of Cornwall,” to a Druidical origin. Be that as it may, the 
legends of the early Irish historians relating to this stone are of 
the most romantic kind, and connect it with shadowy kings of 
the ancient royal race of Ireland. 

The old Irish prophecy connected with that stone, and the 


t 


THE STONE OF DESTINY. 175 

prophecy connected in Scotish belief with the Fatale Marmor 
of Scone and Westminster, to which Scotish mediaeval writers 
transfer the regal attributes of the Lia Fail, have not the same 
form in the two countries; but it cannot be doubted that the 
Scotish tradition was derived from Ireland, and the prophecy 
itself looks of Oriental origin. The Persians had their Artizoe, 
or “ Fatal Stone,” which, from the notice of it given by Pliny, 
seems to have been a kind of ordeal stone, for it was used to point 
out the most deserving candidate for the throne. Then, too, 
there is the sacred Black Stone, which is considered by the Seids 
to be their palladium ;* and (it is curious ethnologically, as well 
as observable in illustration of this point, that) a tribe of Indians 
of South America reverenced a sacred and Fatal Stone—described 
as a large mass of very rich grey silver ore—which they guarded 
and removed as they were driven from place to place by the 
Spaniards, and which was the first thing that the subjugated 
natives stipulated to retain.f And, moreover, amongst the many 
stones which have long been considered sacred, there is the 
Caaba, the sacred character of which is held by the Mussulmans 
to have been proved by a miracle. It is believed to have been 
at one time the object of worship, and Mahomet, finding the 
prejudice of his countrymen too strong to overcome, transferred 
this remarkable object to the wall of the Temple of Mecca, and 
there fixed it as a sacred stone. 

It does not appear at what time the race of Scoti who migrated 
from Ireland to the hills of Argyll first possessed the Fatal Stone 
that was preserved at Scone until king Edward I. removed it to 
Westminster. The patriotic romances of some mediaeval Scottish 
writers—ingeniously avoiding altogether the Irish tradition of 
the Stone of Destiny—pretend that king Fergus, three hundred 
and thirty years before Christ, brought with him into Scotland 

* It is mentioned in 1851, by the distinguished officer who was then 
Lieut.-Colonel Williams, the British Commissioner for the settlement of the 
Turkish boundary question, in a letter from Ilamadan, Persia, for which 
see Literary Gazette , 12th of April, 1851. The stone has a long story 
attached to it. 

f These facts are stated by Mr. Empson, in his account of some South 
American figures in gold, obtained from the sacred lake of Guataveta, in 
Columbia.— Archceol. LEliana, vol. ii. p. 253. 


176 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


the stone seat of royalty on which the kings had been inaugu¬ 
rated in Ireland, and on which his successors were wont to be 
crowned ; and they add, more credibly, that the same stone was 
afterwards placed by king Kenneth in the abbey of Scone about 
the year of our Lord 850. Scone was, from very early times in 
Scotish history, the place of convention—the Scottish Hill of 
Tara—and upon its Folk-mcte eminence the kings were accus¬ 
tomed to be crowned until the time of Kenneth ; after which 
epoch the kings of Scotland, down to the time of Robert Bruce, 
received the crown sitting upon that stone, in the old monastery 
of Scone, which was a foundation of unknown antiquity by 
followers of the rule of St. Columba, who w r ere called Culdees, 
and derived their institution from Iona.* 

There can be no doubt that this ancient marble seat was thus 
used for the inauguration of the Scotish kings tunder the idea 
that it was the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, of their Irish pro¬ 
genitors, which had been brought originally from the East. But 
the existence of the Lia Fail upon the Hill of Tara may be 

traced, as we have said, from, at all events, the sixth century 

downward ; and there this stone—which is described by Mr. 
Petrie as an upright pillar nine feet high—at present stands near 
its original locality—the talisman of the kingdom in the old 

traditions of the country. The Fatale Marrnor of Scone is found 

to have been only a substitute. When the Irish colonists of 
Scotland, to give stability to their new kingdom, begged the 
Lia Fail as a loan from the mother country, she, with more than 
Hibernian prudence, retained the original, and sent over a substi¬ 
tute, or at most a portion—a loan which the colonists accepted in 
faith, and, with Scotish care, prized too highly ever to return; 
and they seem to have transferred to it the prophecy that a prince 
of Scotia’s race should govern wheresoever it should be found. 
Buchanan, the Scotish historian, identifies it with the stone which 
had travelled to Scotland, through Ireland, from Spain, and speaks 
of it as “ the rude marble stone to which popular belief attributed 
the fate of the kingdom.” 

* Scone was founded or re-formed anew by Alexander I., avIio about 
a.d. 1115 brought thither canons regular of St. Augustine from the house 
of St. Oswald of Hostel, near Pontefract. 


THE STONE OF DESTINY. 


177 


And here our readers may like to see the lithological descrip¬ 
tion which has been given of this mysterious object. It is a sandy 
granular stone, a sort of debris of sienite, chiefly quartz, with 
felspar, light and reddish-coloured, and also light and dark mica, 
with some dark green mineral, probably hornblende, intermixed; 
some fragments of a reddish-grey clay-slate are likewise visible in 
this strange conglomerate, and there is also a dark brownish-red 
coloured flinty pebble of great hardness. The stone is of an 
oblong form, but irregular, measuring twenty-six inches in length, 
nearly seventeen in breadth, and ten inches and a half in thick¬ 
ness. It is curious that the substances composing it accord (as 
remarked by Mr. Brayley) with the sienite of Pliny, which forms 
the so-called Pompey’s Pillar at Alexandria. 

The Latin rhyme in which the old prophecy was perpetuated— 

Ni fallat fatum Scoti quocunque locatum 
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem— 

is said to have been engraved by order of Kenneth, but there is 
no trace of an inscription upon the stone. If the distich really 
was engraved at that early time in the history of the coronation- 
stone, it was probably on a metal plate (of which there is some 
trace upon the stone), or on the wooden chair in which that king 
is recorded to have had the stone inclosed. 

The story of its removal to Westminster, in a.d. 1296, by 
King Edward I., is too well known to need repetition. “ The 
people of Scotland,” says Rapin, “had all along placed in that 
stone a kind of fatality. They fancied that only whilst it remained 
in their country the state would be unshaken; and for this reason 
Edward carried it away to create in the Scots a belief that the 
time of the dissolution of their monarchy was come, and to lessen 
their hopes of recovering their liberty.” As an evidence of his 
absolute conquest, Edward therefore removed the regalia of the 
Scotish kings, and gave orders that the famous stone which was 
regarded as the national palladium should be conveyed to West¬ 
minster Abbey, where, accordingly, it was solemnly offered by 
the kneeling conqueror to the holiest of his name; and there, 
inclosed in the chair of King Edward and used at all coronations, 
it has ever since remained, notwithstanding that in the year 1328 

N 


178 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


it was an article of tlie treaty of peace authorised by the great 
council at Northampton that it should be restored to the Scots. 
By writ of privy seal in that year, Edward III. directed the abbat 
and monks of Westminster to deliver it to the sheriffs of London 
for the purpose of being restored to Scotland, but the Scots were 
unable to obtain the performance of this stipulation. They made 
another attempt to bring back their talisman, by stipulating, in 
the year 1363, that the English should deliver it up to them, and 
that the King of England should come to be crowned upon it at 
Scone; but in this stipulation, also, the Scots were disappointed. 

Whatever may have become of the original chair in which 
Kenneth is said to have had the stone inclosed, and which does 
not appear to have been brought into England at all, it is certain, 
say the historians of Westminster Abbey, that the present coro¬ 
nation-chair was made for the reception of this highly-prized relic 
of ancient customs and sovereign power. In a.d. 1300, as appears 
by an entry in the Wardrobe Accounts, Master Walter the Painter 
was employed in certain work ‘ ‘ on the new chair in which is the 
stone from Scotland,” and he bought gold and divers colours for 
the painting of the same. The chair was once entirely covered 
with gilding and ornamental work, and the design is of Edward’s 
time. Down to the period when Camden wrote his history, there 
were to be seen on a tablet that hung by this royal stone in the 
chapel of the Confessor at Westminster some lines which set forth 
that the stone is that on which Jacob placed his head. No earlier 
document is known in which the coronation-stone is connected 
with the patriarch, and whether his pillar is at this moment in 
the dome of the rock at Jerusalem, upon the hill at Tara, or in 
Westminster Abbey, we do not undertake to decide; but if for 
nearly seven centuries the posterity of King Malcolm Canmore 
and St. Margaret, the great-niece of Edward the Confessor and 
representative of the Saxon line, continued to reign over Scotland, 
the Scots have long recognised in the sovereign of Great Britain 
a representative of their ancient line of kings, and under the gentle 
sway of Queen Victoria may be well content with their share in 
the government of the United Kingdom, and with our possession 
of the Fatal Stone. 


THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND. 


[“Notes and Queries,” vol. ii. p. 409 .] 

A correspondent of Notes and Queries asks what became of 
the Holy Cross, or “ Black Rood,” at the dissolution of the Priory 
of Durham, and he inquires for some particulars of its tradition. 

I fear the fact that it was formed of silver and gold gives little 
reason to hope that this historical relique escaped destruction, if 
it came into the hands of King Henry’s church robbers. Its 
sanctity may, indeed, have induced the monks to send it, as they 
did some of their other reliques, to a place of refuge on the con¬ 
tinent, until the tyranny should be overpast; but no tradition is 
preserved at Durham to throw light upon the question what 
became of the Black Rood. 

I subjoin, however, some particulars illustrative of its earlier 
historv. 

o 

I am not aware of any record in which mention of this relique 
occurs before the time of St. Margaret. It seems very probable 
that the venerated crucifix which was so termed was one of 
the treasures which descended with the crown of the Anglo- 
Saxon kings. When the princess Margaret, with her brother 
Edgar, the lawful heir to the throne of St. Edward the Confessor, 
fled into Scotland, after the victory of William, she carried this 
cross with her amongst her other treasures. Aelred of Rievaulx 
(ap. Twysd. 350) gives a reason why it was so highly valued, 
and some description of the Rood itself: 

Est autem crux ilia longitudinem habens palmse de auro purissimo 
mirabili opere fabricata, quse in modum techas clauditur et aperitur. 
Cernitur in ea qusedam Dominicse crucis portio (sicut ssepe multorum 
miraculorum argumento probaturn est). Salvatoris nostri ymaginem habens 
de ebore densissime sculptam et aureis distinctionibus mirabiliter decoratam. 

N 2 



180 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


St. Margaret appears to have destined it for the abbey wliicli 
she and her royal husband, Malcolm III., founded at Dunfermline 
in honour of the Holy Trinity: and this cross seems to have 
engaged her last thoughts; for her confessor relates that, when 
dying, she caused it to be brought to her, and that she embraced, 
and gazed stedfastly upon it, until her soul passed from time to 
eternity. Upon her death (16th Nov. 1093), the Black Rood 
was deposited upon the altar of Dunfermline Abbey, where 
St. Margaret was interred. 

The next mention of it that I have found, occurs in 1292, in 
the Catalogue of Scotish Muniments which were received within 
the Castle of Edinburgh, in the presence of the Abbats of Dun¬ 
fermline and Holy Rood, and the Commissioners of Edward I., 
on the 23rd August in that year, and were conveyed to Berwick - 
upon-Tweed. Under the head 

Omnia ista inventa fuerunt in quadam cista in Dormitorio S. Crucis, et 
ibidem reposita per praedictos Abbates et alios, sub eoruin sigillis, 

we find 

% 

Unum scrinium argenteum deauratum, in quo reponitur crux quo 
vocatur la Make rode. —Robertson’s Index , Introd. xiii. 

In the inventory made at Burgh-upon-Sands, 17th July, 
35 Edward I. (1307), are the following items:— 

In CofFro signato sup’ius signo Crucis. 

Yidelt. crux Neyh’ ornata auro et lapid’ precios’ una cum pede ejusd’ 
crucis de auro et gemis in quad’ casula de corr’ eu a coffr’ d’co pedi aptata. 

It. la Blakerode de Scot’ fabricata in auro cu’ cathena aur’ in teca int’i’ 
lignea et ext’i’ de arg’ deaur’. 

It. crux S’ce Elene de Scot’, &c. (Pro Rec. Comm.) 

It does not appear that any such fatality was ascribed to this 
relique as that which the Scots attributed to the possession of the 
famous stone on which their kings were crowned. If it had 
been, we might conjecture that when Edward I. brought the 
“ fatal seat” from Scone to Westminster, he brought the Black 
Rood of Scotland too. 

We next find it in the possession of King David Bruce, who 
lost this treasured relique, with his own liberty, at the Battle of 
Durham (18th Oct. 1346), and from that time the monks of 


THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND. 


181 


Durham became its possessors. In the “ Description of the 

Ancient Monuments, Kites, and Customs of the Abbey Church 

of Durham,” as they existed at the Dissolution, which was written 
in 1593, and was published by Davies in 1672, and subsequently 
by the Surtees Society, we find it described as 

A most faire roode or picture of our Saviour, in silver, called the Black 
Boode of Scotland, brought out of Holy Rood House, by King David 

Bruce . . . with the picture of Our Lady on the one side of our Saviour, 

and St. John’s on the other side, very richly wrought in silver, all three 
having crownes of pure beaten gold of goldsmith’s work, with a device or 
rest to take them off or on. 

The writer then describes the “ fine wainscote work ” to which 
this costly “ rood and pictures ” were fastened on a pillar at the 
east end of the southern aisle of the choir. And in a subsequent 
chapter (p. 21 of Surtees’ Soc. volume) we have an account of 
the cross miraculously received by David I., and in honour 
of which he founded Holy Rood Abbey in 1128; from which 
account it clearly appears that this cross was distinct from the 
Black Rood of Scotland. For the writer, after stating that this 
miraculous cross had been brought from Holy Rood House by 
the king, as a “most fortunate relique,’ 5 says: 

He lost the said crosse , which was taiken upon him, and many other most 
wourthie and excellent jewels .... which all were offered up at the shryne 
of Saint Cutlibert, together with the Blache Rude of Scotland (so termed) with 
Mary and John, maid of silver, being, as yt were, smoked all over, which 
was placed and sett up most exactlie in the piller next St. Cuthbert’s 
shrine,” &c. 

In the description written in 1593, as printed, the size of the 
Black Rood is not mentioned; but in Sanderson’s “Antiquities 
of Durham,” in which he follows that description, but with many 
variations and omissions, he says (p. 22.), in mentioning the 
Black Rood of Scotland, with the images, as above described,— 

Which rood and picture were all three very richly wrought in silver, and 
were all smoked black over, being large pictures of a yard or five quarters 
long, and on every one of their heads a crown of pure beaten gold, &c. 

I have one more (too brief) notice of this famous rood. It 
occurs' in the list of reliques preserved in the Feretory of 


182 LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 

St. Cuthbert, under tbe care of the shrine-keeper, which was 
drawn up in 1383 by Richard, de Sedgbrok, and is as follows: 

A black crosse, called the Black Bode of Scotland. — MS. Dunelm. B. ii.35. 

The cross brought from Holy Rood House, and in honour of 
which it was founded, has been mistaken for the Black Rood 
of Scotland, owing, probably, to the statement in the passage 
above extracted from the “Ancient Monuments/’ that this cross 
was brought out of Holy Rood House. 

That the Black Rood of Scotland, and the Cross of Holy Rood 
House, were distinct, there can, I think, be no doubt. The cross 
mentioned by Aelred is not mentioned as the “Black Rood:” 
probably it acquired this designation after his time. But Fordoun, 
in the “ Scoti-Chronicon,” Lord Hailes in his “Annals,^ and 
other historians, have taken Aelred^s account as referring to the 
Black Rood of Scotland. Whether it had been brought from 
Dunfermline to Edinburgh before Edward’s campaign, and 
remained thenceforth deposited in Holy Rood Abbey, does not 
appear: but it is probable that a relique to which the sovereigns 
of Scotland attached so much veneration was kept at the latter 
place. 


THE NUMBER SEVEN. 


[“Household Words,” May 24, 1856.] 

The Number Seven has had a significant connection with things 
divine and human, with the superstitions of folk-lore and the 
mysteries of faith, from the earliest times, and in almost every 
country of the world. In the Holy Scriptures and in Jewish 
ordinances it has a mysterious significance; it is found in Mussul¬ 
man and Hindoo writings, and it is connected with the super¬ 
stitions of Asia. It has found its way into ecclesiastical ordinance, 
and is traced in church-architecture as well as in edifices of classic 
antiquity ; and from remote ages certain mystic relations have 
been attributed to it as well in Europe as in the blast, and in 
authentic history no less than in Oriental fable. 

We will glance briefly at the most remarkable instances of its 
occurrence. And first, as regards the connection of the number 
seven with Jewish ordinances and Holy Scripture, it would seem 
that we might trace to the Creator’s rest on the seventh day of 
creation, the ideas which in a manner consecrated that number 
from the times of the Jewish lawgivers. By the Hebrew 
nation the seventh day was held sacred as by a divine ordinance; 
seven days were appointed for the consecration of the high priest; 
seven victims w r ere to be offered in certain sacrifices. Seven times 
the blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled; seven times the altar 
was anointed at the consecration of Aaron. And not only was 
the seventh day a sabbath; seven other days in every year were 
to be kept holy. Every seventh year was a year of rest, and after 
seven times seven a jubilee was celebrated. There were seven days 
for eating unleavened bread. Most of the great feasts occurred in 
the seventh month. Seven days the Lord waited before sending 



184 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


the flood ; and it was after an interval of seven days that the 
patriarch Noah sent forth the dove. Jacob served seven years for 
Rachel. Seven times Jacob bowed before his brother Esau, lliere 
were seven years of plenty and seven years of scarcity in Egypt. 
And it was the number of purification as well as sufficiency : 
thus, Naaman washed seven times in Jordan. Samson was bound 
with seven bands ; and it was on the seventh day when seven 
priests blew seven trumpets and went seven times about the walls 
of Jericho that the city was taken. It is curious to read in 
Scotish story that the success of the persevering spider on the 
seventh attempt was an omen of encouragement to Robert Bruce. 
Seven often occurs as the number of completeness: thus Solomon 
speaks of the seven pillars of the house which Wisdom hath built. 
Twice seven generations are reckoned before King David. And it 
is because seven is the number of perfection (say old commen¬ 
tators), that we are told to forgive our enemies seventy times 
seven times. 

Then, in the New Testament, the number seven has an equal 
prominence. Thus, we have the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit; 
the seven sentences of Our Lord, the seven clauses of His 
prayer, and seven weeks between the Passover and Pentecost. In 
the Revelation of St. John, he represents in his Apocalypse the 
Wonderful Being who dwells in celestial grandeur, as walking in 
the midst of seven golden lamps, which are churches. The 
address of St. John the Divine “ to the seven churches which are 
in Asia,” is made (as a reverend author* has observed), “ first to 
the seven metropolitan churches, and in them to all other churches 
in the Lydian Asia the patriarchate of St. John, and from thence 
to all churches then in the world, and thence to those of all time— 
the Catholic Church where Christ is walking in the midst unto 
the end according to His promise, 4 Lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world.’ ” “ Through the seven churches,” 
says Bede, “ St. John writes to every church.” For by the 
number seven is denoted universality. So, too, Berengardus 
writes, “The one Catholic Church is meant by the number seven.” 
St. Chrysostom says, “ The seven churches are all churches by 

* Williams on the Apocalypse, p. 6. 


I 


THE NUMBER SEVEN. 


185 


reason of the seven spirits.” St. Augustine, too, says that by 
seven is signified the perfection of the church universal, and that 
by writing to the seven churches St. John shows forth the fulness 
of one. It is not that the Church of Christ was then only in 
these places, but in the sevenfold number consists all fulness. 
The Apostle Paul writes to seven churches, but not to the same 
as John. This mystical number seven (continues the commen¬ 
tator) is the number of forgiveness of sins; of the sevenfold power 
of the Spirit; of the rest of Christ hallowing the works of man; 
this perishable world of the six days, and all dwelling in this life, 
admitted to the never-ending sabbath of God and combined with 
the life to come. So, there are seven heavens and seven angels 
pre-eminent over the rest, as the great Irenseus Bishop of Lyons 
has written; and in the work of creation itself God was believed 
to have employed seven angels. Again, seven spirits are before 
the throne—harmonious in their influence on man as the seven 
notes in music ; there were seven lamps to the golden candle¬ 
stick ; the beast sought a power with seven heads; and there are 
the seven seals. Then, in precepts and ordinances of the Church, 
we find the ordinance of the seven sacraments attributed to the 
traditional merit of this holy number; the articles of faith in rela¬ 
tion to the Trinity were (in a synod held at York in a.d. 1466) 
arranged into seven, as were those relating to the nature of Our 
Lord. We are warned against the seven deadly sins, and 
exhorted to the seven principal virtues and the seven works of 
mercy. The Church Catholic recites the seven penitential psalms, 
and observes the seven “ hours ” or offices of daily prayer. More¬ 
over, there is the noviciate of seven years for the priesthood. It 
is, therefore, not surprising that the schoolmen of the middle 
ages were fond of speculating on the mystical influence of the 
number seven, and of tracing its connection with most of the 
events of sacred history. Seven, as we have seen, was deemed 
“the number of perfection” in the days of the prophets and 
kino-s of Israel ; and writers of the Christian Church have 

O 

regarded it (to use the language of Leon Baptista Alberti) as 
“ the number in which the Almighty, the maker of all things, 
takes particular delight.” 

But to pass from things sublime to things sublunary. Among 


186 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


the disciples of Pythagoras each number had its peculiar signifi¬ 
cance, but seven was the sacred number, as it had been considered 
from the earliest times. They called it a number of perfection, 
because composed of three and four—the triangle and the square, 
by which they said all things are capable of being measured; to 
them, therefore, it was the number of fitness, quantity, diversity, 
and perfection. It was also the number of life, because, accord¬ 
ing to their philosophy, it contained body and soul—body being 
of four elements and soul of three powers. But the number 
seven was, to some extent, a mystical and consecrated number 
before the time of Pythagoras. It was dwelt upon by Homer 
and Hesiod. The Egyptians, moreover, according to the belief 
that there were seven planets, made a sevenfold division of the 
heavens and of sacred things. 

It is remarkable that in the oldest of books we read of “ the 
sweet influence of the Pleiades/’ and that in Europe, during the 
middle ages, when astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in 
its prime, the seven planets were recognised as governing all 
things terrestrial by their aspects and influences, and the number 
seven was supposed to denote the starry potentates. 

Then we have the cycles of seven thousand years seen by the 
mysterious Persian bird, or griffin, Simurgh, who, according to 
Eastern romance, had lived to see the earth seven times filled 
with animated beings and seven times a perfect void, and who 
predicted that the race of Adam would endure for seven thousand 
years, and then give place to beings of more perfect nature, with 
whom the earth would end. There are the seven incarnations of 
Vishnu and his seven heads. The Hindoos reverence the myste¬ 
rious names of the seven worlds. In the Hindu mythology the 
Creator shines with seven rays ; He is light or the effulgent 
power, who is held to be manifest in the solar orb, and to pervade 
or illumine the seven worlds or abodes—the seven mansions of all 
created beings. The earth is held, in Hindu belief, the first or 
lowest of these ; then there is the world of renewed existence, 
in which beings passed from earth exist again, but without sensa¬ 
tion, until the end of the present order of things; Heaven, or the 
upper world, the abode of the good; the middle world—an inter¬ 
mediate region; the world of birth, where the inhabitants of the 


I 


THE NUMBER SEVEN. 187 

existing globe who shall be destroyed at its conflagration will be 
born again; the mansion of the blessed; and finally, the seventh 
world—the sublime abode, the residence of Brahme himself. The 
number seven enters also into one of the Hindu modes of trial by 
ordeal, seven leaves of each of three kinds of herbs being fastened 
on the hands of the accused with seven threads. 

The Mussulmans to this day hold the number seven to be 
sacred. They reckon seven climates, seven seas, seven heavens, 
and as many infernal regions. According to Rabbinical and 
Mussulman authors, the body of Adam was made of seven hand¬ 
fuls of mould taken from the seven stages of the earth; and, 
indeed, the seven zones or ranges of mountains are arranged by 
the Hindoos like so many steps rising gradually one above an¬ 
other. They account the tower or pyramid of Babel to have 
been of a square form, with seven stages or steps like the holy 
mount Meru. 

The seven sacred evolutions of the Moslems round the Black 
Stone of Mecca is another example of the connection of this 
mysterious number with Eastern superstitions; and it recals to 
mind the superstitious custom of going seven times round a hay¬ 
stack on Hallow-e’en. 

But, to turn from the fabulous theories of Asiatic speculation 
to the substantial monuments of classical and mediaeval times, 
the ancient connection of the number seven with architecture 
might alone form the topic of a small essay. Allusion has been 
already made to that verse of the Proverbs, in which Solomon 
writes, “ Wisdom hath built her house: she hath hewn out her 
seven pillars.” And Gentiles, as w T ell as Jews, seem to have had 
a community of ideas with respect to this number. It is found 
in the two most remarkable temples of Grecian antiquity, viz. 
the cella of the Parthenon, which is supported by seven pillars 
on either side, and the colossal temple of Jupiter Olympus at 
Agrigentum, which is adorned with seven columns on the east 
and west, and fourteen on the sides. Our illustrious Wykeham, 
in the plans of his chapels at Winchester and Oxford, divided 
them longitudinally by seven. In other English architecture, 
First-Pointed as well as Decorated, the number seven constantly 
recurs: as, for example, in the cathedral churches of York, 


188 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Durham, Lichfield, Exeter, and Bristol; the abbey church of 
Westminster; the churches of Hornsey, Waltham, Buildwas, and 
St. Alban’s (in the Norman part); at Castle Acre, and at St. 
George’s, Windsor; and it prevailed, moreover, in France, as we 
may find in the cathedral churches of Paris, Amiens, Chartres, 
Evreux, &c. And do not the Seven Lamps of Architecture 
shine luminously in the pages of our eloquent friend Mr. Ruskin ? 
He shows that (1) the spirit of sacrifice; (2) the reverence of 
truth; (3) the expression of power; (4) the imitation of beauty; 
(5) the attainment of vitality; (6) the building for memory; 
and (7) the obedience to universal laws, are the lamps which must 
guide our architectural creations. 

Again, seven seems to have been a magic number in ancient 
cities from very early times. Rome was built on seven hills; 
and of the second Roman capital, the city of Constantine, it was 
observed that Constantinople was also built on seven hills, had 
seven names and seven towers, and was taken from the seventh 
of the Palseologi by the seventh Sultan of the Othmans. So 
too, in a later day, Avignon was remarkable as a city of seven 
gates, seven parishes, seven palaces, seven collegiate chapels, 
seven hospitals, seven monasteries, and seven nunneries; (and 
Cardinal Id. Gonsalvi takes occasion to remark that it was the 
first to condole with Pope Pius VII. on his forced sojourn in 
France !) The number seven was likewise conspicuous in Brus¬ 
sels. Seven principal churches, of which the most striking was 
that of St. Gudule, with its twin towers, its charming faqade, 
and its magnificently painted windows, adorned the upper part 
of the city. Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient 
castles, supplied the stock from which the senators were selected 
who composed the upper council of the city. There were seven 
great squares, seven city gates; and on the occasion of the abdi¬ 
cation of the Emperor Charles V. it was observed by the lovers 
of remarkable coincidences that seven crowned heads would be 
congregated under a single roof in the liberty-loving city of 
Brussels.* 

The wonders of Galway, too, are measured by sevens in some 
* Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic, p. 9. 






THE NUMBER SEVEN. 


189 


Latin verses of the year 1651, appended to a map of the city, 
which have been thus translated:— 

Rome boasts seven hills, the Nile its sevenfold stream, 

Around the pole seven radiant planets gleam; 

Galway, co-nation Rome, twice equals these— 

She boasts twice seven illustrious families ; 

Twice seven high towers defend her lofty walls, 

Her polished-marble decked and splendid halls ; 

Twice seven her massive gates, o’er which arise 
Twice seven strong castles towering to the skies; 

Twice seven her bridges, through whose arches flow 
The silvery tides, majestic, deep, and slow; 

Her ample church with twice seven altars flames 
(A heavenly patron every altar claims) ; 

While twice seven convents pious anthems raise 
(Seven for each sex) to sound Jehovah’s praise. 

In tlie great Isle of Arran may still be seen the grave of the 
“ seven Romans,” which hears an inscription of remote antiquity; 
and in the town of Cell Beloigh there were the seven streets 
containing the habitations of strangers. Another of the marvels 
of Ireland was the changing of sundry Irish natives into wolves 
every seven years, according to Giraldus. Then, too, there was 
that phantom island of the Atlantic which excited the curiosity 
of the early Portuguese navigators—the “ Island of Seven 
Cities,” so called from the ancient legend that seven bishops 
who fled, with their flocks, from Spain on the conquests of 
the Moors, founded seven fine cities on this island, but all the 
efforts to find it were unavailing. The realities of life 
have not obliterated our remembrance of legendary lore; and we 
recollect those tales of wonder, about a service to a giant or a 
fairy for seven years, and about a spell that was to endure for 
seven years, of which we have so many examples in fairy tale. 
It was for seven years that Thomas of Ercildoune was to serve in 
fairy-land, and the Chief of Colonsay was kept by the mermaid 
seven long lonely months in the ocean cave. Moreover, every 
seven years the fairies’ tribute was to be rendered by mortals; 
and we must not forget St. Patrick’s memorable banishment of 
the reptiles and demons for seven years, seven months, and seven 
days. 


190 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Both ancient and modern fable enriched their annals with 
stories of Seven Sleepers; and chivalry and romance furnished 
Christendom with Seven Champions, and the esquire’s service of 
seven years of which we read in Don Quixote. Near St. Renan, 
in Britany, is a curious cemetery at a small hamlet bearing the 
modern name of Lannionare, where (according to tradition) 
repose the remains of seven thousand seven hundred and seventy- 
seven martyrs, who were promoted to the dignity of saintship in 
consequence of having perished in an attempt to convert a pagan 
temple into a Christian church—an attempt which drew down on 
them the vengeance of a legion of heathens.* Then, too, there 
is the connection of the number seven with the stories about 
buried treasure which can only be raised by seven milk-white 
oxen. And it has found its way into the legend concerning a 
submerged organ, the scene of which is the village of Eusserthal, 
about an hour’s journey from Alberssweiler, in Germany, and 
which is strikingly similar to the stories relating to buried'bells 
that exist in the United Kingdom. This is a golden organ that 
once stood in the convent church, and was sunk in a marsh to 
protect it from the enemies of the convent, in a place the precise 
locality of which cannot be found. Nevertheless, every seven 
years it rises out of the depths at midnight, and its solemn tones 
are heard in the far distance, swelling through the stillness of the 
night, f 

It would extend this article beyond its intended limits to show 
the prevalence of the number seven in the “ Folk Lore ” of North 
Germany and Scandinavia, still more to trace its occurrence in 
tales of enchantment generally. 

The ancients boasted, as we all know, the seven wonders of 
the world; in history we read of the seven wise men of Greece; 
and modern ages have had the seven wonders of Dauphine, and 
the seven wonders of Wales. 

In many parts of the country may be seen plantations of seven 
oaks and twelve elms, the latter usually planted in circles. They 
are not limited to England. Canon Stanley mentions the exist- 

* Weld’s Tour in Brittany, 1856, p. 185. 

f AthenEeum, 6th Sept. 1856, in review of Ferd. Biissler’s Sagen, in which 
the legend occurs. 


THE NUMBER SEVEN. 


191 


ence (on a hill on the right batik of the Barada, in Palestine), of 
tlie seven u Sindians,” or Syrian oaks, as to which the popular 
legend relates that seven trees here grew up on the spot in which 
Cain interred the body of his brother and planted his staff to 
mark it. 

Then, too, there were “the seven lovely Campbells,” Lord 
Archibald’s daughters, celebrated in Wordsworth’s ballad, who 
dwelt together at Binnorie, and together plunged into the lake, 
where 

Seven little islands, green and bare, 

Have risen from out the deep ; 

The fishers say those sisters fair 
By fairies are all buried there, 

And there together sleep. 

The number seven has come down to modern times in many of 
our usages and “ common things,” besides the names of the seven 
days of the week, derived from the seven anciently known 
planets. In this country seven years is, in many particulars, a 
significant period of time. We serve seven years’ apprenticeship, 
elect Parliaments for seven years, punish by seven years’ trans¬ 
portation, take seven years’ leases of property, and presume the 
death of a person who has been absent and not heard of for seven 
years. We reckon seven liberal arts, seven mechanical arts, and 
seven prohibited arts. It was said there are seven colours (as we 
still say); seven metals (as we no longer say), viz. gold, silver, 
copper, lead, tin, iron, and quicksilver; seven openings in the 
human head, viz. two to the nose, tw^o to the eyes, two to the 
ears, and one to the mouth ! And in music there are familiar 
instances of its prevalence. There were seven notes in the Greek 
diatonic scale; the choruses of Aeschylus and Sophocles were 
divided into lines of seven syllables; and for strophe and anti¬ 
strophe there were seven alternate singers. 

Then, as affecting human life. The body is supposed to be 
changed every seven years. The old physicians and philosophers 
held that every septennial period altered the human system, and 
formed an epoch in the growth of man. Thus, the period of 
infancy was fixed at seven years, and there was another septen- 
nium of boyhood. 


192 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


The prevailing notion of the climacteric years was founded on 
the same tenet, and thence also we derive the Seven Ages of 
Man. They were arranged thus: after the first seven months 
the first teeth come, after the first seven years they give place to 
others, after the second seven years puberty comes, after the third 
the fulness of womanhood and manhood. 

We say, therefore, to this day in England, when three times 
seven years are complete, at twenty-one, a person is of age. 
During the third seven years he has been increasing in height; 
during the fourth seven years he increases in breadth; during 
the fifth seven years the man, complete in form, is perfected in 
vigour; and during the sixth period of seven years retains his 
powers unabated. In the seventh period of seven years prudence 
is perfected, and thus during the period expressed by seven times 
seven man is in his prime. Finally, when we come to ten times 
seven (at which ends the multiplication by the simple numbers), 
man has attained the appointed number of his days. 

Then, too, we have lately seen discussed the superstition con¬ 
nected with a seventh son, and it is gravely maintained that it 
takes the seventh son of a seventh son to make a surpassing 
physician. 

Among the Romans, infants who died before the seventh month 
of their age had not the ordinary rites of sepulture. So now, in 
some parts of the East, children who die under seven years are 
not mourned by their parents. But here we must bring this 
chapter to a close. The instances we have given sufficiently 
illustrate the widely-prevalent and mysterious significance of the 
number seven. 


L ON D INI AN A.* 


[The Dublin Review, June, 1856.] 

In the works mentioned at the foot of this page, the chief 
memorabilia of the metropolis have been described in a form so 
concise and popular that a fresh interest has been given to the 
historical monuments of London, and “the golden haze of 
memory 51 has been thrown around many a familiar spot upon the 
crowded highways of our “ murky Babel.” Those publications 
follow a scries of works so numerous and comprehensive that the 
Hand Book was the only form in which anything new could be 
written on the history and antiquities of the metropolis; and it 
has been adopted with so much success by the diligent authors to 
whom we have referred, that the results of life-long research are 
made accessible to the most casual readers. In these popular 
notices of London localities we find the present everywhere 
connected with the past, and see how deeply the London of 
to-day is founded in a substratum of antiquity enriched by the 
auriferous sands of Time. 

Set in the light of history, the tangible remains of antiquity 
that stand upon our daily paths receive an unexpected dignity and 
significance, and arouse our interest, as witnesses of the succession 
and sway of former races of men. Their monuments become 
endued with power to bring before our mind the early inha¬ 
bitants and the various aspects of London, in the successive eras 
of its history since first the Augustan city rose around the Roman 

* 1 . Hand-Book of London, Past and Present. By Peter Cunningham, 
F.S.A. 

2. Curiosities of London : exhibiting the most rare and remarkable 
objects of interest in the Metropolis. By John Timbs, F.S.A. London: 



194 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Prsetorium. They enable us to realize a portraiture of London in 
its successive ages:—of Roman London, growing amidst the rude 
defences of the British stronghold and surrounded by the spread¬ 
ing waters of the Thames and the primeval forest of the hills— 
a military colony with its temples and its forum, its bounding 
wall, its gates and diverging roads; of Saxon Lundenwic, with 
its clergy and monks, its thanes and merchants, its trading guilds 
and Witena Gemote assembling amidst the remains of Roman 
power and surrounded by still uncleared forest; of Norman London, 
then become a royal city, adorned by many churches and by 
edifices of feudal strength ; of London of the Plantagenets, with 
its mercantile opulence, its quaintly attired citizens, sumptuary 
laws, and timber houses ; of London of the Tudors, with its 
peaked gables, carved ceilings and rush-strewed floors, its stately 
pageants, and its regal crimes ; and of London of the Stuarts, 
with its formal furniture and gay costume, its plays performed in 
daylight at the Globe Theatre, and its shady suburban roads 
through country now overspread by Marylebone and Bloomsbury. 

With the metropolis as it appeared in each of these by-gone 
ages, it is curious to compare the London of to-day, still, as of 
old, mighty in its ships, and world-embracing in its commerce; 
wondrous and varied in its aspects seen in the blaze of daylight, 
solemn and suggestive when the vast city lies slumbering in the 
peace of night; that metropolis, so full of strange contrasts and 
incongruities, of palatial splendour and obscure poverty, of state 
liveries and rags, of sumptuous club-houses, and “ eating-shops 
surrounded by hungry poor,” of western opulence and eastern 
squalor. Not less striking are the combinations of the present 
and the past, which are everywhere presented in our metropolis, 
from Stepney to Southwark, from Tyburn to the Tower, or the 
monuments which serve to contrast ancient manners with the 
institutions of our day. Thus, in the pages which describe the 
Curiosities of London, we find strangely mingled the Roman 
camp and Ranelagh Tea-gardens ; Domesday book and the 
Daguerreotype; Doctors’ Commons and the Electric Tele¬ 
graph ; Convents and Coffee-houses ; mediaeval Crypts and the 
Crystal Palace; the Black Friars’ monastery and the “ Times ” 
printing-office; abbeys and wax-work show r s; museums and 


LONDINIANA. 


195 


monuments; ancient palaces and modern prisons ; inns of court 
and plebeian taverns ; mansions of Belgravia and cellars of St. 
Giles ; candle-lighted streets and gas-light companies ; Lambeth 
prelates and Houndsditcli Jews ! 

And where could we find a field so rich in its historical associ¬ 
ations—a city so inviting to our retrospective view ? Amidst 
the interminable stream of traffic that crowds its public thorough¬ 
fares, where everything seems to be worked at high pressure, the 
Londoner knows that he may retreat to many a spot, within the 
city’s roar indeed, but still haunted by the spirit of the olden 
time. Cornliill (as Sir Barnes Newcome remarks) is not exactly 
the place for sentiment; but here, as on many other thronged 
highways, there are visible or remembered monuments of the 
past, which carry back our thoughts as much to the times of the 
Plantagenets, or even of the Caesars, as to the times of modern 
rulers; for all who have borne dominion here seem to have set 
their seal on London, as the Medici have done upon the storied 
hills of Borne. Unlike Paris of the present day, London has 
never seemed ambitious to look young; and notwithstanding the 
sacrifice of many ancient features to the stern exigencies of city 
“ improvements,” and to the almost fabulous augmentation of the 
value of land, .some very characteristic buildings of by-gone days 
are still mingled with modern structures. But in London, as 
everybody knows, we have not the striking contrast between an 
ancient capital and a modern city, that we find so emphatically at 
Borne,—between august remains of a distant antiquity and the 
structures of a modern time. Very few buildings, even of a 
mediaeval date, stand visibly amongst the abodes of men ; yet in 
London, as in Borne, some remains of every period of its history 
exist above the ground—grey monuments of the past, that have 
been ‘'sheltered by the wings of Time.” We must excavate, how¬ 
ever, to a depth of from eight to fifteen feet below the surface of 
our crowded thoroughfares, if we seek the elaborate pavements 
of the luxurious Boman, or the foundation of the Saxon edifices 
that succeeded to his occupation. The historical monuments of 
London form, like the English language, a rich composite 
derived from successive ages. Where buildings themselves have 
disappeared, names of places preserve some memory of them ; and 

o 2 


196 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


many of the city churches, though rebuilt in and after the seven¬ 
teenth century, recal in their dedications, as well the rude piety 
of Scandinavian sea kings as the sway of Norman princes. Thus, 
in St. Alphage and St. Alban, St. Botolph and St. Dunstan, 
St. Pancras and St. Edmund, we are on the footsteps of our 
Saxon forefathers ; St. Clement, St. Magnus, and St. Olave, pro¬ 
claim the dominion of Scandinavian rulers ; while St. Mary and 
St. Helen, St. George and St. Giles, St. James and St. Leonard, 
witness the devotion of the Normans, as the Temple and the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre recal the times of the crusades. 
It is true that no gothic spires now rise above the clustering 
houses; but crypts and other remains of many of these edifices 
exist, and they carry back our thoughts to the time when more 
than a hundred churches reared their antique towers and spires 
above the quaint old city. In this respect, as well as in some 
other characteristic features, the metropolis of those days, like 
many ancient English cities, must have presented a great contrast 
with mediaeval Paris, as the division into minute parishes never 
obtained upon the Seine. The city churches are even now set 
down as eighty-nine in number, and are the survivors or repre¬ 
sentatives of the one hundred and twenty-two parish churches 
and thirteen monastic edifices of religion that London contained 
in the time of the monk Fitz-Stephen—a number which very 
nearly corresponds with that of the churches and remains of eccle¬ 
siastical edifices at this time standing in Cologne, where, by the 
way, it is said that there were once as many churches as there 
are days in the year. The diminution ill the number of parish 
churches is not, however, so remarkable in London as in York, 
Norwich, and some other English cities, in which the number of 
churches was anciently much greater in proportion to the size 
and population of the city than in London. The religious edifices 
that escaped destruction in the fire of London (the most notice¬ 
able of which are the Chapel of the Tower, the Church of St. 
Bartholomew, the Temple Church, the graceful chapel and crypt 
of St. Etheldreda in Ely Place, and the once stately church of 
the Austin Friars), show how great was our loss in that calamity. 
Of the eighty-seven parish churches which, besides St. Paul’s 
Cathedral, were destroyed in the fire, Wren re-built fifty, at the 


LONDINIANA. 


197 


cost of about a million and twenty-five thousand pounds (in 
money of those days), of which sum £736,000 were expended on 
the new cathedral from the beginning to the completion of the 
work, and on the other churches sums varying from £11,400 on 
St. Bride’s, to the modest expenditure of £1,850 on St. Yedast’s 
Foster Lane. But many a quiet cemetery surrounded by city 
warehouses alone marks the site of a lost church ; for in the 
re-building of London two or more parishes were in some 
instances united for one church—an establishmentarian parsi¬ 
mony affording a significant contrast between the times of 
William of Orange and those of William of Normandy, and 
very different from the spirit in which the churchmen of the 
Middle Ages planted so thickly the houses of God. In more 
recent days we have witnessed a wanton destruction of ancient 
churches in a spirit even worse if possible than that of Puritan 
destroyers; and very lately it has been proposed by magnates, 
upon the pretext of their generally deserted state, to offer to the 
Minotaur several of the city churches that remain, their sites 
being, we suppose, eligible for Manchester warehouses. It cer¬ 
tainly is not the architecture of the existing structures, generally, 
that makes their preservation desirable, most of them having been 
re-built after the Great Fire—a time when Ecclesiastical Archi¬ 
tecture was not understood in England—and being hideously 
be-pewed and defaced with semi-heathen monuments of the worst 
kind; but the sacred character of all these edifices, and the inter¬ 
esting associations of many of them, ought to forbid the Van¬ 
dalism with which they have been threatened. However, some 
of the city parishes hastened to give their answer to their 
bishop, and declared that they will neither desecrate nor destroy 
their churches. The very turmoil that is passing so near to them 
always seems to us to deepen the sense of religious calm that 
pervades them; while the old attendant tree which still stands by 
many a church secluded amongst tall warehouses in the city, and 
which Spring comes through the dusky labyrinths to clothe with 
welcome verdure, seems to be a gift of heaven dropped in what 
has become a very uncongenial spot of earth. And the city 
churches seem moreover to set forth (what a modern preacher 
well contends), that we may and ought to be pious and holy- 


198 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


minded in the world, and that we may carry with us good and 
solemn feelings in the throng and thoroughfare of daily life. It 
is something that we are able, amidst the tumult of worldly 
pursuits, to fence off, as it were, a still domain for religion, 
where we may seek the peace which the world cannot bestow. 

But to return from this digression. Venerable as many of the 
city churches are in the antiquity of their foundation, London 
was old when the oldest of them rose under the hands of their 
Norman builders, for they stand amidst the interred remains of 
Roman buildings; and the first Bishops of London reared their 
cathedral amidst the remains of a great Roman temple where 
St. Paul’s now stands. The site which was destined to be occu¬ 
pied by the famous City of London does not seem to have been 
fortified by the Roman legions so early as Colchester, Verulam, 
or York. Londinium, the “city of ships,” is not mentioned by 
Caesar; and it is supposed that the Roman standards were first 
erected there in the reign of Claudius, and more than a century 
after Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain. The first Roman colo¬ 
nists appear to have established their station upon the plateau of 
land lying between the river and the fenny ground of Moorfields, 
bounded longitudinally by the Wallbrook (which was then a 
stream, navigable for boats as far as where Coleman Street now 
stands), and by the Langbourne on the East. Londinium had 
become a place much frequented by merchants, and a great depot 
of merchandize as early as the time of Tacitus, who so describes 
it in his Annals, and it subsequently became a colonia under the 
name of “ Augusta.” It seems to have then extended from Black- 
friars to the Tower, and on the north to Bishopsgate. The city 
wall was the work of the later Roman period. That famous 
boundary extended more than two miles in its course, and seems 
to have been twenty feet in height. Within the area of the 
walled Roman city, excavations have brought to light the very 
streets on which the Roman colonists walked, and the floors of 
the villas in which they dwelt. The London of the Romans is in 
fact a buried city, covered not by the ashes of a volcanic eruption, 
but by the slowly accumulated debris of later dwellings. The 
general level of the underground city is not less than fifteen feet 
below the present surface; an amazing accumulation certainly, to 






LONDINIANA. 


199 


Have arisen out of the occupancy and traffic of a crowded popula¬ 
tion and the ruin of their buildings, even during the long period 
of fifteen centuries. The ancient thoroughfare of Eastcheap, 
which was undoubtedly a Roman highway, is thought to have 
been the principal or Praetorian gate of the garrison of Agricola, 
leading into the Forum. Watling Street was probably the chief 
highway through Roman London. Upon the line of it, the cele¬ 
brated fragment of the Lapis Milliaris , known as “ London 
Stone,” is preserved near the spot where it was originally set up, 
which was within the Forum of Agricola’s station, and on the 
south side of the street. A place now called Sea Coal Lane, 
between Fleet Lane and Snow Hill, seems to be on the site of 
the once crowded amphitheatre of the Romans. 

“ The remains of Roman London,” says the author of the 
“ Curiosities,” “ consist chiefly of portions of the city wall; foun¬ 
dations of buildings ; tessellated pavements, often of so much 
beauty as to denote magnificence in the superstructure; baths, 
bronzes, and various ornaments admirable as works of art.” A 
Roman bath, nearly complete, still exists in Strand Lane; a 
Roman hypocaust is shewn beneath the Coal Exchange; and in 
the churchyard of St. Giles, Cripplegate, is the only remaining 
bastion of London wall. 

The lower courses of masonry of the wall are perhaps the most 
considerable of the underground remains of Londinium. There 
are some curious examples of Roman embankments. Thus, the 
course of the Wall-brook was embanked with wooden piles; the 
ground on which the Custom Llouse stands was gained from the 
Thames; and upon the river from the Custom House to the 
Tower were wooden embankments upon which stood Roman 
villas, that were probably adorned by the arts cultivated on the 
Tiber. In removing some wooden houses on the site of Tower 
Royal in 1852 (a place where the kings of England had a castle 
as early as the time of Stephen) the remains of one of these 
Roman villas w T ere found, surrounded by a strange debris of 
horns, tusks, and other remains of animals of chase, with frag¬ 
ments of Roman pottery. But the abodes of Roman luxury were 
not confined to the line of the river. Some curious remains were 
recently discovered under the deepest foundations of the old 
Excise Office in Broad Street, a locality formerly the site of Sir 


200 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Thomas Gresham’s mansion and of his munificent collegiate foun¬ 
dation. The tessellated pavement here found in situ was thirteen 
feet below the surface. A Roman villa (the fine pavement of 
which was deposited in the British Museum) stood on the site 
recently occupied by the Hall of Commerce, and now by the 
Bank of London. Another pavement was found near the church 
of St. Helen, Bishopsgate; and in Leadenhall Street, opposite to 
the portico of the East India House, the most magnificent tessel¬ 
lated pavement yet found in London, was discovered at a depth 
of nine feet. Southward, in Goodman’s Fields (Minories), and 
eastward, in Spitalfields, were the cemeteries of Roman London. 

But the elaborate temples and dwellings of the Romans, 
entombed like their own sepulchral urns, are not the only subter¬ 
ranean curiosities of the metropolis. Many crypts and structures 
of mediaeval time exist below the present level of our streets, and 
they form characteristic remains of the London of the Norman 
kings, and their immediate successors. Of this class of monu¬ 
ments, the crypt or range of vaults beneath the White Tower is 
perhaps the oldest specimen. Every ancient part of that cele¬ 
brated “palace-fortress” seems impressed with its chequered 
memories; and with these silent and gloomy chambers—hardly 
penetrated by the light of day, or by the sounds of the busy life 
around—many touching remembrances of captivity and suffering 
are associated; but beyond these regal, historic walls, many fine 
though less ancient crypts have been preserved in a perfect state 
down to the present century, though the superstructures have 
disappeared. 

The well-known crypt of Gerard’s Hall was an unsurpassed 
monument of our early domestic architecture. It was sacrificed 
to a new street in 1852. This was a work of the first half of the 
thirteenth century, in and after which age several wealthy mer¬ 
chants appear to have inhabited houses built on vaulted crypts. 
The hall too had become identified with domestic architecture in 
the following century, and houses began to rise to a third story. 
Remarkable for its fine character, extent, and preservation, rather 
than for antiquity, is that celebrated undercroft, the crypt of 
Guildhall—the only portion of the building erected in 1411 that 
escaped the fire. 

01 ecclesiastical crypts, the City of London possesses several 


LONDINIANA. 


201 


examples, for the crypts remain of many of the old City churches, 
the superstructures of which were destroyed in the Great Fire; 
but they are for the most part applied to vile and sacrilegious 
uses. Perhaps the oldest is the Norman crypt of St. Mary-le- 
Bow, Cheapside. A crypt of the destroyed church of St. Martin, 
regarded as in part the work of William of Wykeham, was 
found in clearing ground for the New Post Office. In Corbet 
Court, off Gracechurch Street, is one (now or lately used as a 
wine-cellar), having near to it what seems to have been in former 
times a holy dipping-well. Many subterranean chapels became 
wine-cellars for adjacent taverns. Several monastic crypts are 
found under houses in different parts of the City, and their dark 
ruinous state contrasts strongly with their original use; while 
their architecture shows that in the “Ages of Faith” more 
labour, taste, and money were devoted to an ecclesiastical crypt 
below the surface of the ground than in modern days we see 
bestowed on the new churches that rise under the auspices of 
Committees and Church-building Commissioners. Of monastic 
remains in the City the crypt of the refectory of St. Bartholo¬ 
mew’s Priory, Srnithfield, presents perhaps the finest specimen of 
early-English work. 

Res;al Westminster can boast some ancient remains of this 
character more eminent in their associations than those of muni¬ 
cipal London. Norman vaulted work—as massive as that within 
the White Tower of Gundulph—existed until 1823 beneath the 
old House of Lords, formerly the Parliament chamber—a struc¬ 
ture probably raised by Henry II. on the ancient foundation- 
work of Edward the Confessor, and which was almost the only 
considerable part of the old Palace of Westminster, excepting the 
venerable hall, that escaped destruction by the fire in the reign 
of Henry VIII. These crypts had been used as the kitchen of 
the Anglo-Norman palace. 

Apropos of Westminster Hall. It has sometimes been stated that 
this magnificent edifice was built as a dining-hall by Richard II., 
but its construction is to be referred to at least two very distinct 
periods. It is well known to have been originally built by 
William II., and to be in a considerable part of its actual fabric 
nearly three centuries older than the time of Richard II., though 


202 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


it may almost be said to have been rebuilt in a.d. 1395, for that 
king caused it to be extensively repaired in walls, windows, and 
roof, “ with marvellous works,” to use the language of the old 
chronicler, “and at great cost.”* It has been suggested, and 
indeed is not improbable, that on the works in 1395 the taste of 

* In the repairs of the building which were in progress under the direc¬ 
tion of Sir Robert Smirke in 1835, the work of the Norman king and that 
of the last of the Plantagenets was clearly distinguishable, and many 
features of the Norman architecture of the original Hall were discovered, 
as, for example, an arcade of small arches connecting the range of windows 
in what may be called the clerestory. They had been continued on both 
sides for the whole length of the hall, and opened into a mural passage 
running along the sides of the building like that in the keep of Rochester 
Castle, which was reached probably by that Norman staircase in the south¬ 
east angle of the Hall, which was altered by Richard II. The materials of 
many of these arches are described to have been used as ashlar-work in the 
great alterations made by that king at the close of the fourteenth century. 
Two of the original Norman windows were lately visible within the 
Hall, on each side of the great south window; and distinct remains 
were found of Norman doorways on the level of the basement story of the 
old palace, which doorways gave access to the Hall from the outer court of 
St. Stephen’s. Of the form of the Norman roof, and the mode in which 
it was supported, nothing is known; but it certainly was not similar to the 
present one. Mr. S. Smirke, the eminent architect, in a valuable account 
of the architecture of Westminster Hall and of the discoveries made during 
the works of 1835, printed in “ Archa3ologia,” vol. xxvi. pp. 406, 414, and 
vol. xxvii. p. 135, remarks that this famous roof, which is nearly of the 
same date as the roof at Eltham, has been erroneously deemed the widest 
roof in Europe without any intermediate support, for, notwithstanding its 
enormous span, which averages sixty-seven feet, there are two examples in 
Italy which surpass it. 

The contract for mason-work of the corbels on the alterations of the roof 
in a.d. 1395 may be seen in Rymer’s u Foedera,” vol. vii. p. 794; and see 
Rot. Pat. 17 Ric. II. part I. no. 1, and Cart. 18 Ric. II. And for a 
description by Mr. Willement of the heraldic decorations found on the 
Corbels on which the great curved ribs appear to rest, see Collect. Topog. 
et Gen. vol. iii. p. 55. 

The present pavement was laid on the level of the floor of Purbeck stone 
which formed the level of the Hall in Richard II.’s time. The work called 
the Galilee (abutting on the southern end of the great Hall), which was 
finished at some time after the 31st Edw. III., was adapted by Richard II. 
by means of a flight of steps, to an approach from the great Hall to the 
chapel of St. Stephen and the principal chambers of the palace. 


LONDINIANA. 


203 


tlie illustrious William of Wykeham may have been put in requi¬ 
sition. The legal antiquary may reflect with pride that for seven 
centuries and a half this eminent building has been “the very 
Praetorium or Hall of Justice for all England ”—a dedication 
even more illustrious than to be a dining-hall for kings. We 
learn from the “ Saxon Chronicle ” that at Pentecost, in the year 
1099, William Rufus held his Court in this his new building for 
the first time; and from that period what great solemnities and 
high festivities it has witnessed; what memorable Parliaments 
have assembled in it; what mighty sovereigns it has seen pre¬ 
siding in judgment ; what a long array of grave judges and 
chancellors famed in history have here declared the ancient laws 
of England! Its memories are not more associated with great 

o o 

national events than (in the language of Mr. Foss) “ with the 
high legal purposes to which it has been for centuries devoted, 
the venerable judges who have administered justice within its 
walls, and the eminent advocates to whose eloquence its roof has 
resounded.” 

The adjacent crypt or “ under-chapel of St. Stephen” formed 
the basement of the chapel dedicated by King Stephen in honour 
of his patron saint, and rebuilt by Edward I., but, alas ! destroyed 
in the reign of Victoria. The under-chapel has been recently 
restored. This is the chapel in which, as our readers will remem¬ 
ber, the remains of a prelate were found buried in the wall. 

An earlier and more curious fragment of ecclesiastical West¬ 
minster is to be seen on the other side of Palace Yard, the Norman 
crypt, namely, below the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey; and 
beneath another celebrated edifice which is within sight, though 
across the river—the chapel of Lambeth Palace—there is a crypt 
which is ascribed to the time of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and 
believed to be a portion of the palace inhabited by the Bishops of 
Rochester before Lambeth put on archiepiscopal dignity. But 
from these sunless monuments — albeit not the least curious 
remains of mediaeval London—it is time to turn to another 
branch of our subject. 

While time and the hand of the destroyer were removing the 
edifices that stood upon these crypts, and raising buildings of a 
very different kind above and around them, the metropolis was 


204 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


extending its boundaries beyond its ancient walls, and gradually 
advancing to become “ a province covered with houses. ’ So 
lately even as the time of the last of the Stuart kings, London— 
although it seems to have then been the most populous capital in 
Europe—had extended little beyond the ancient city limits, and 
the houses westward of the boundary were for the most part the 
residences of the nobility, and stood amidst gardens bounded by 
open fields. At that time, of course, none of the docks and 
warehouses that now spread from the Tower to Black wall 
existed, and only one bridge crossed the Thames. Even le&s 
than a century ago the roadway between the overhanging houses 
on London Bridge was so narrow that two vehicles could scarcely 
pass, and the case was much the same with London streets at the 
time of the Great Fire. They stood in blissful ignorance of 
improvement commissioners and paving boards. They were un¬ 
lighted at night, and most of the shops were still distinguished 
by their painted signs. Green fields, and hills the contour of 
which cannot easily be traced amidst the buildings that flow 
thickly cover them, extended to the northward of the city two 
centuries ago; there was neither Tyburnia nor Belgravia; Chelsea 
was still a rural village with little more than a thousand inha¬ 
bitants; and Islington, a peaceful retreat, “ the delight of poets.” 
Nor were manners and customs in the city less unlike those of 
the present day. The Lord Mayor never appeared in public 
without wearing his robes and hood, and being attended by his 
suite; the merchants resided in the city, and there many of them 
had mansions as costly as those of the nobility who had migrated 
westward. At the Restoration the time had not long passed 
when the Lord Mayor, as Howel records, maintained his park 
of deer near the city, “ to find him sport and furnish him with 
venison.” He was accustomed to ride with a gay cavalcade to 
hunt at Tyburn, on which occasions the fox was sometimes run 
down at St. Giles’s Pound; and Ben Jonson as a boy might be 
seen flying his kite near the windmill in St. Giles’s Fields. In 
those days the feudal rights of wardship and marriage of orphans 
were still claimed by the civic magistrates; wardmote inquests 
still solemnly inquired after scolds and witches, whether any 
persons walked by night at unseasonable hours without carrying 


LONDINIANA. 


205 


lights, and whether any citizen neg’lected to hang a lantern at 
his door with a candle, therein burning as appointed for the 
season of the year; no alehouse-keeper could charge more than a 
penny for a quart of ale, and proclamations were put forth to 
restrain the carrying of merchandise through the Cathedral of 
St. Paul. For many years after those times the platform and the 
newspaper still continued to be unknown; and the coffee-house 
was an institution of London life ! 

It was not in these respects only that the metropolis still bore 
the impress of ancient manners. From an early period the 
citizens of London had fair and large gardens to their houses, 
which, be it remembered, were not in Norwood and the pleasant 
suburbs inhabited bv their modern successors, but within the 
city walls; and even less than two centuries and a half ago many 
of the li citizens of credit and renown ” continued to enjoy their 
gardens. In the reign of Henry II. Fitz-Stephen mentions the 
gardens in the City of London; in the reign of Edward I. we 
find u the king’s garden at the Tower ” an object of royal care, 
and provision is made for planting it with pear-trees; and through 
several succeeding reigns the gardens of the chief mansions in 
the city were preserved; for the plodding citizens, steadily as 
they accumulated the glittering products of mercantile adventure, 
seem to have prized the sparkling pleasures of the garden, and to 
have rejoiced in flowers as well as florins. When, in the reign 
of Henry VI., the Grocers’ Company bought the Lord Fitz- 
Walter’s mansion (which fell in the Great Fire, and was rebuilt 
by the Company for the Mansion House of the chief magistrate), 
it stood “ in a fair open garden for air and diversion,” though in 
the centre of London, bounded by the Wallbrook on one side, 
and Old Jewry on the other. In the time of Queen Elizabeth 
the country lay open nearly all the way to Hampstead and High- 
gate from the rear of the large house which Thomas Cromwell, 
the short-lived favourite of Henry VIII., erected in Throgmorton 
Street, and which, after his attainder, was made the Drapers 
Common Hall. Other city halls, and many private mansions of 
civic magistrates, had their terraced gardens, which were planted 
usually with lime-trees, and adorned sometimes with fountains, 
summer-houses, and grottoes. Sir Paul Pindar, Greshams con- 


206 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


temporary, had his mansion in Bishopsgate Street, and his 
“ garden and park ” reaching to Finsbury Square, with an ornate 
lodge at the rear of the mansion. 

In 1675, when Bethlehem Hospital was built south of Moor- 
fields, on London Wall, that ground was a pleasance to the 
citizens, adorned with trees, and laid out with turf and gravel- 
paths and railings, and traversed by a broad and shady walk 
parallel to the hospital, known as the City Mall. 

The Venetian Ambassador to the Court of James I. secured a 
house in an airy and fashionable quarter—one that, like Ash- 
burnham or Chandos House in our own day, had frequently 
been let to foreign ambassadors. It was a little too much in the 
country, but it was near the most fashionable theatres, especially 
those that kept the best-trained dogs for bear and bull baiting. 
Its situation is now seldom traversed by the “ fashionable 
world,” though familiar to that part of it which is in the 
habit of frequenting the Eastern Counties Station—it is Bishops¬ 
gate Street Without. The house belonged to one of London’s 
most eminent citizens—Sir Paul Pindar—and its site, Mr. Cun¬ 
ningham tells us, is still indicated by the “ Sir Paul Pindar’s 
Head.” 

Gresham House had spacious walks and garden. At that 
time the garden of the Black Friars, though the monks were 
gone, had not become overspread by houses, nor had the silent 
walks of the Carthusians wholly yielded to the now busy world 
of Newgate Street. Around Cornhill were many gardens; the 
Minories (so called from the lands having formerly belonged to 
the Nunnery of St. Clair),"formed a comparatively open space; 
and an adjacent farm belonging to the nuns, where Stowe in his 
youth often bought a quart of new milk for a halfpenny, was 
afterwards let out by one Goodman for grazing horses and for 
garden-plots, whence it acquired the name of Goodman’s Fields. 
During the reign of James I., and even later, some districts that 
are now thickly populous parts of the great metropolis were in a 
rural state. Spitalfields—once the Cemetery of Roman London 
—afterwards the lands of the Hospital and Priory of St. Mary 
beyond Bishopsgate, continued to be fields ; from Houndsditch a 
street of houses standing in their gardens, extended nearly to 









LONDINIANA. 


207 


Shoreditch Church, which was almost the last building in that 
direction ; in Gravel Lane stood the then new mansion in which 
Count Gondemar is said to have been afterwards lodged, which 
Stowe describes as “ a house built amidst fair hedgerows of elm- 
trees, with bridges and easy stiles to pass over into the pleasant 
fields.” Linen was dried and books were sold under the trees in 
Moorfields; cattle grazed and archers shot in Finsbury; and 
Goswell Street was a lonely road all the way to the village of 
Islington. Clerkenwell was chiefly occupied by the precincts of 
the once great Priory of the Hospitallers of St. John, who, not 
long before the suppression, granted licence to cut timber in 
St. John’s Wood. Mr. Britton, the veteran architect and antiquary, 
who has lately departed from us, remembered that only seventy 
years ago Spa-fields afforded pasturage for cows; and the old “gar¬ 
den mansions” of the aristocracy remained in Clerkenwell Close. 
At that time Sadler’s-wells, Islington-spa, Merlin’s Cave, and Bag- 
nigge Wells were nightly the resort of gay company. In the 
first half of the last century the “ New Tunbridge Wells,” at 
Islington, was a fashionable morning lounge. A “squalid 
rookery of misery and vice” is on the site of these once pleasant 
gardens. In the time of James II. “The Pindar of Wakefield” 
was still a road-side hostelry in Gray’s-Inn Road, and Aubrey 
mentions the yellow-flowered Neapolitan bank-cresses which grew 
adjacent to it. 

Gray’s-Inn Gardens, like the gardens of the other inns of court, 
are happily green inclosures still, though dwellings have clustered 
thickly round them, and a wilderness of brick and mortar has 
arisen between them and the suburban country once surveyed 
from them. These gardens were planted with elm-trees about 
a.d. 1600, when the modest sum of £7 16s. 4J. “expended on 
planting elm-trees” was allowed by the society to “Mr. Bacon,” 
who erected a summer-house on the small mount on the terrace. 
In 1754 (and perhaps after) there was standing in. Gray’s-Inn 
Gardens, on the west side, within that space where at the end of 
the century there was a circle of trees, an octagonal seat covered 
with a roof, which seat had been erected by Francis Bacon (after¬ 
wards Lord Verulam), to the memory of his friend Mr. Betten- 
ham ; around the seat outside was the following inscription:— 


208 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


“ Franciscus Bacon, Regis Solicitor Generalis, Executor Testa- 
men ti Jeremise Bettenham, nuper Lectoris hujus Hospitii, Yiri 
innocentis abstinentis et contemplativi, hanc sedem in memoriam 
ejusdem Jeremiae extruxit. Anno Dom. 1609.” Howel, in a 
letter from Venice, dated 5th June, 1621, speaks of Gray’s-Inn 
Walks as “ the pleasantest place about London, with the choicest 
society and later in that century they were in high fashion as a 
promenade. At that time there was an almost uninterrupted 
view from the summer-house of the meditative chancellor to the 
pleasant heights of High gate and Hampstead, which had then 
scarcely lost the woodland scenery of the ancient forest of 
Middlesex. The Temple gardens no longer enjoy the extensive 
view they once commanded, when the eye ranged over the green 
marshes of Lambeth and the gradually rising ground, to the 
Surrey hills, encircled by many a tract of oak and beech-woods, 
but they are still as refreshing in their aspect as they are inter¬ 
esting in their associations, and 

Still lone, ’mid the tumult, these gardens extend, 

The elm and the lime over flower-beds bend. 

For a scene of seclusion, “ what can be more admirable ” (it has 
been asked by a popular writer) “ than the Temple ? The 
bright lawn of the gardens looking out upon the moving 
pageants of the river, with the meditative trees, and the cawing 
rooks that seem for ever dreaming of past times, and the sur¬ 
rounding houses substantial and grave yet cheerful —a quiet nest, 
the more delightful for being in the heart of London’s vitality.” 
Lincoln’s Inn, too, possessed what the same writer aptly calls 
“ the grace and brightness, the ever-renewing poetry of trees.” 
The once famous garden of the Earl of Lincoln, if not productive 
of fruit and flowers as in the reign of Edward I., before his 
mansion passed to the lawyers, has yielded refreshment and 
delight to a long succession of grave practitioners since it became 
attached to this ancient Inn of Court. Lincoln’s Inn is truly 
“ a beautiful retirement, rendered magnificent by the noble pile 
of Stone-buildings and picturesque by the rich Elizabethan 
architecture of the new Hall.” Old red-tiled houses, too, stand 
a under whispering trees by green grassplots, and are approached 


LONDINIANA. 


209 


by picturesque gateways ready to admit the visits of your friends, 
yet able to shut out the noisy world.” 

The lesser inns can likewise boast the green spots they have 
islanded, and many antique, old-world, often stately buildings 
stand in their secluded courts. But emerging from these juridical 
shades to the garish thoroughfares, let us resume our retrospect 
of the rural state, at no remote period, of localities no longer 
green, but now thickly overspread by buildings. 

The fashionable morning promenade held in the days of 
Charles II. in Gray’s Inn Gardens, had become transferred in the 
reign of George II. to “ Lamb’s Conduit Fields,” where brocaded 
silks, gold-lieaded canes, and laced three-cornered hats formed a 
“gay bevy” in the grounds before the Foundling Hospital. Only 
a century ago, Bloomsbury and the vicinity of Bedford Square 
retained much of their rural character. The gardens of Mon¬ 
tague House, destined to be overspread by the British Museum 
(and which so late even as 1790 were bounded by fields) and 
the gardens in Great Russell Street, were still fragrant, and looked 
over open country to the green Hampstead hills. 

The once famous gardens of Ely House, which still “ look 
green in song,” continued to grace the district north of Holborn 
long after the time when Cox, Bishop of Ely, unwillingly leased 
to Sir Christopher Hatton, at the bidding of Queen Elizabeth, 
the greater portion of that fair demesne, reserving a red rose, ten 
loads of hay, and £10 per annum, payable at Midsummer, and 
the right for the bishops to walk in the gardens and gather 
twenty bushels of roses yearly. The meadow and the kitchen 
garden, the vineyard and orchard, of Ely House, in which the 
bishops were famous for raising choice fruit, appear to have 
extended from Holborn Hill northward to what is now Hatton 
Wall, and east and west from Saffron Hill to Leather Lane, and 
to have had few buildings near them. Saffron Hill, Field Lane, 
Lily Street, Turnmill Street, and Vine Street seem in their 
modern degeneracy to mock the remembrance of what formerly 
flourished on their respective localities. In and long after the 
time of James I., Chancery Lane, Fetter Lane, and Shoe Lane 
intersected gardens in which were straggling lines of cottages. 
The district between Holborn and the Thames was not built over 

p 


210 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


until long afterwards; and the locality on each side of Fleet 
Street retained, until after the reign of Charles I., many features of 
its former state under ecclesiastical and monastic dominion. On 
the north, in Shoe Lane, the chief ancient mansion was the town 
inn of the Bishops of Bangor, with its lime-trees and rookery; 
on the south was the inn of the Bishops of Salisbury, which 
afterwards became the property of the Sackvilles, Earls of Dorset. 
Extending' from Fleet Street to the Thames, and from the 
western side of what is now White Friars Street to the Temple, 
was the abbey-land of the white-robed Carmelites, whose ancient 
privileges of sanctuary became abused to vile uses while the 
kingdom of Alsatia flourished in the seventeenth century— 
Alsatia, where (as Mr. Cunningham remarks) violation of law 
stood in such strange antagonism to the study of it in the 
adjacent Temple. 

And here we may glance westward along the Strand at the 
less ignoble fate of the garden ground of another and more 
famous religious fraternity—the garden, namely, of the Abbey of 
Westminster, afterwards known as Covent Garden. This, at the 
accession of Henry III., occupied the chief part of the present 
parish of St. Paul, and less than two centuries ago a great 
portion of it continued to be open ground. It was granted in 
1552 with seven acres of land called Long Acre, of the yearly 
value of £6 65 . 8 d. (!) to John, Earl of Bedford, who built a 
town residence, the materials of which were mostly timber, upon 
that part of the garden which was afterwards occupied by South¬ 
ampton Street. To the place where the monks cultivated fruit 
and vegetables, those luxuries are now brought from all parts of 
England for sale, to the estimated value of £3,000,000 yearly. 
Apropos of monastic gardens in the sixteenth century, it would 
seem that even these could not produce a salad, for that delicacy 
is said to have been sought in vain for the royal bride, Katherine 
of Aragon, upon her arrival in England. 

Perhaps no district now incorporated with the metropolis, but 
formerly a suburban territory, has undergone a more striking 
change, since the reign of James I., than the wide parish of 
St. Giles. That village had its ancient stone cross, its cottages 
and garden-plots in the reign of king John, and was remarkable 


LONDINIANA. 


211 


for the Lepers’ Hospital which queen Matilda had founded. It 
retained much of its rural character in the time of Stowe, and still 
consisted of only a few houses amidst trees, standing near the 
church, while to the north and west stretched open country, 
traversed by roads with avenues of trees, and to the east, green 
inclosures, from the walls of what had been the hospital, to Chan¬ 
cery Lane, many inns standing upon the Holborn Road. Until 
late in the seventeenth century the site of Long-Acre, Seven- 
Dials and Soho, was occupied by “ Cock and Magpie fields,” so 
called from a favourite and then suburban hostelry. Drury 
house, near the Strand end of Drury Lane, where the village of 
St. Giles began, the only considerable mansion in that direction, 
was shaded by a row of elms. The “ physic garden,” in which 
John Gerarde, citizen and surgeon, culled his simples late in the 
reign of Elizabeth, had not been built upon a century afterwards. 
But early in the reign of Queen Anne the whole parish, excepting 
Bloomsbury and the vicinity of Bedford Square, had become 
covered with houses; stately residences had risen in Soho; and 
“ Cock and Magpie Fields ” became only a remembrance. Even 
at the accession of George III. St. Giles’s Pound was at the 
threshold of London. Sadly changed, indeed, is St. Giles’s 
parish; and now, amongst the dense and miserable population 
dwelling in the obscure precincts of Seven-Dials, upon the lands 
formerly annexed to the Lepers’ Hospital, the modern gin-palace 
spreads a moral leprosy which equally separates its victims. 

In the reign of Elizabeth the cities of London and Westminster 
seem to have been joined only by the few houses of the nobility 
which occupied the line of the Strand. St. Martin’s Lane was a 
green lane, bordered by a few houses between the villages of 
Charing and St. Giles. On the site of Exeter Change was the 
parsonage house of St. Martin, with its garden and paddock for 
the parson’s horse, whereon Lord Burghley built his fine mansion 
with four square turrets at the angles, which derived the name of 
Exeter House from his son Thomas Cecill, Earl of Exeter. The 
space between Charing Cross and St. James’s Palace seems to 
have been then occupied by fields; and in the following century 
Spring Garden was still a garden. There the nightingale might 
be heard less than a hundred years ago. In the Haymarket were 

p 2 


212 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


hedge-rows and a few houses, and upon the site of Her Majesty s 
Theatre washing women dried linen upon the grass. In 1 all 
Mall, less than two centuries ago, 140 elm-trees bordered the 
walk. About 1670, Schomberg House and the adjoining man¬ 
sions, then newly built, had their gardens and embanked terraces 
overlooking the green walks of St. James’s Palace; and, a propos 
of this abode of royalty, we are told that when Henry VIII. built 
a mansion here it stood far away in the fields. It occupies the 
site (as a mass of very dissimilar tenements in St. Giles’s occupy 
the site) of a lepers’ hospital—the hospital of St. James, founded 
in the days of the Norman kings, and rebuilt by an abbat of 
Westminster in the reign of Henry III. in the rural seclusion of 
meadows, which three centuries later Henry VIII. converted into 
a royal park. In the reign of Elizabeth the line of Piccadilly was 
known only as “ the waye to Redinge;” and even in the time of 
George I. the road was for the most part unpaved, and coaches 
were often overturned in the hollow. In the reign of Charles II. 
the site of Bond-street was covered by bushes. The Earl of 
Burlington, less than a century and a half ago, converted “ Ten 
Acres Field,” in the rear of his formal gardens, into “ a little 
town,” and beyond them there was at that time open country. 
There was no street then beyond Bolton Street on the west of 
London. In the reign of Charles II., too, a proclamation was 
issued against the increase of buildings in Windmill Fields and 
the fields adjoining Soho. Leicester House, which gave its name 
to the fields adjacent, had then its spacious gardens—the site of 
the present Lisle Street. 

Only a century ago Pimlico was celebrated for its public 
gardens. There was the Mulberry Garden, now part of the site 
of Buckingham Palace ; the Dwarf Tavern and gardens stood 
between Ebury Street and Belgrave Terrace; the Orange Tavern 
and gardens flourished where the Church of St. Barnabas now 
stands; the Gun Tavern in Queen’s Row was famous for its 
arbours and costume figures; and besides these places of public 
resort, and others of smaller note, there was the famous RanelaMi. 
Less than a century since, Buckingham House enjoyed an unin¬ 
terrupted prospect to the south-west. In the adjacent lower parts 
of Westminster there were still some gardens, although the 






LONDINIANA. 213 

Palace itself could no longer boast the once famous royal garden, 
m which the Plantagenet princes had gathered their roses and 
lilies and well-cherished fruit. So lately, however, as the close of 
the seventeenth century, Whitehall Palace and the mansions of 
nobles and prelates that lined the Strand retained their sloping 
gardens and their water-gates. The sumptuous mansions of 
Belgravia, and the ranges .of buildings that overspread the vast 
space between Baton Square and the Thames, have risen, as every¬ 
body knows, within the last thirty years. 

And here we may glance at Tyburnia—that other world 
which has still more marvellously grown within the present 
century, remembering, as we pass, that Marylebone, the largest 
of the one hundred and seventy-six metropolitan parishes, which 
now numbers four hundred thousand inhabitants, and is, perhaps, 
“for its size, the richest district in the world,” was a small 
village, a mile from the nearest part of the metropolis, at the 
commencement of only the last century. The “White Hart” at 
. the corner of Welbeck Street, was long a solitary public-house, 
where travellers stopped for refreshment, and to examine their 
fire-arms before crossing the fields to Lisson Green, at Padding¬ 
ton. In the year 1600, the ambassadors from Russia rode with 
their suite from the city to hunt in what is now the Regent’s 
Park ; and so small was the population of Paddington at the 
close of even the last century, that the one coach which ran from 
thence to the city was an unprofitable speculation. The rapid 
growth, and now enormous rental of the Paddington estate, form 
one of the greatest of metropolitan marvels. A town, composed 
in great part of rows of palatial dwellings, has risen within fifty 
years round the site of a forest village; and whereas “ the Manor 
and Rectory” were let for £41 6s. 8 d. a-year when Edward VI. 
gave them, being late the property of the Abbot and Convent of 
Westminster, to Ridley Bishop of London and his successors, 
Paddington had attained a rated value of £400,000 a-year at the 
date of the last Census, a population of 46,000 persons, and 6,519 
houses ! It has been truly said that the story of its growth sounds 
like a fable. 

As far as regards the increase of population, the case is not 
very different with St. Pancras, which is now the most populous 


214 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


of all tlie metropolitan parishes, and is in circumference the 
most extensive parish in the county. In the middle of the 
thirteenth century, a village of forty houses surrounded the 
Norman church (we are of course speaking of old St. Pancras 
in the fields), and was lonely and suburban within even the last 
century. 

It is not one of the least of the curiosities of London that the 
old Saxon love of self-government should take the form of 
submission to multitudinous boards of local governors; and this 
parish of St. Pancras has rejoiced in a remarkable development 
of local administrative bodies, having been blessed with no fewer 
than sixteen boards for paving alone, constituted with 427 com¬ 
missioners, governing forty miles of road. But the whole of the 
huge city known as London is infinitely subdivided into local 
jurisdictions for paving, lighting, sewerage, and making rates ; 
and within the metropolitan limits there have been until lately 
no fewer than three hundred different bodies to carry on the 
local administration, and an army of about fifteen thousand petty 
commissioners empowered by about two hundred and fifty 
Private Acts! 

But we have not room to trace any further the modern trans¬ 
formation of rural districts into thickly inhabited portions of the 
ever-increasing metropolis. Let us pass to another group of 
London curiosities, viz., the eminent buildings and noble resi¬ 
dences which, if standing, have for the most part degenerated to 
uses uncongenial with their former grandeur, or which have dis¬ 
appeared with the families of their former owners, and partici¬ 
pated in their decay. They are to be found in various parts of 
London. 

Crosby Hall, in Bishopsgate, is perhaps the most remarkable 
in this class of buildings, on account as well of its age and former 
dignity, as of the features of architectural grandeur which have 
survived its vicissitudes. It was built about the year 1466, by 
that Sir John Crosby who was knighted by Edward IV., and 
whose noble monument is in the adjacent church of St. Helen; 
and, after being occupied by Richard III., was purchased by Sir 
Thomas More, who resided in it after 1514, and here received 
Henry VIII., who at that time kept his court at Castle Baynard 


LONDINIANA. 


215 


and St. Bride’s. Here u tlie riclr Spencer,” lord mayor in 1594, 
entertained Sully, on his special embassy from Henry IV. of 
France; and here the celebrated Countess of Pembroke, “ Sidney’s 
sister, Pembroke’s mother,” lived many years. Its subsequent 
fate was sadly inconsistent with such associations. In its days of 
decadence it became first a Presbyterian meeting-house, then a 
packer’s warehouse, and afterwards fell into disrepair; but when 
the taste for architecture revived in the present century, and 
u Crosby Place” was found to be the finest example in London of 
a domestic hall of perpendicular work and of a fine timber roof, 
it was restored for use at musical performances and lectures. The 
ancient hall, the council chamber, and the throne-room above, 
remain; and the place is fraught with musical as well as regal 
memories, for under its shadow Wilbye, and Morley, and Bird, 
resided.* 

Of Baynard’s Castle, on the river bank, which was likewise 
once a royal abode, the name alone remains in the city of 
London. Its history ascended to the reign of William the 
Conqueror ; it was afterwards held by the FitzWalters, Chief 
Bannerets of London, and, having been re-built by Humphrey 
Duke of Gloucester, was inhabited by Richard Duke of Glouces- 

* On the 3rd June, 1857, the unexpired term of the lease (seventy-seven 
years) of this fine memorial of early London, was put up to auction. The 
property consisted of two shops and dwelling-houses in Bishopsgate Street; 
the hall, including the council chamber, 40 feet by 22, with stone mantel¬ 
piece and frames richly sculptured in the Gothic style; the throne room, a 
splendid apartment, 41 feet by 23, with arched and ornamented oak groined 
ceiling, 20 feet high, and gallery to correspond, with four Gothic windows 
with stone mullions, enriched with stained glass, overlooking Crosby Square, 
&c.; the great hall, 55 feet long, with additional gallery, making 67 feet 
by 27. The ceiling is particularly striking for its richness, being elaborately 
carved in the Gothic style, with conical pendants and arches 40 feet in 
height. On the eastern side are five stained glass windows, with stone mullions, 
and elaborate tracery enriched with armorial bearings; on the west side, six 
windows to correspond, of larger dimensions, and a magnificent oriel window 
connected by a lofty arch; a highly-worked stone ceiling; and organ 
loft gallery, screens, &c., strictly in accordance. The wine vaults cover 
a space of 2,100 square feet. These premises are let in separate por¬ 
tions to the amount of 453/. yearly. They have walls of great thickness. 
The property was knocked down for 5,990/., but it is understood to have 
been bought in. 


216 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


ter, and here certain scenes of King Richard III. have been 
accordingly laid by Shakspeare. It was repaired by Henry VII., 
who, with the Queen, went from this castle on the morrow of 
the nuptials of Prince Henry with Katherine of Aragon, and 
conducted to it the royal pair, who had been lodged in the palace 
of the Bishop of London. After being let to the Earl of Pem¬ 
broke, in the reign of Elizabeth, and afterwards inhabited by the 
Earl of Shrewsbury, it was destroyed in the Great Fire. 

The district between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, which was 
anciently the abbey land of the Black Friars, preserves the name 
at least of the great monastic house, where parliaments and other 
councils assembled, and where the king kept his records, and 
frequently held his court. Many nobles once dwelt within the 
precincts of the Black Friars’ Monastery; and here, in 1522, 
Henry VIII. lodged his royal visitor, the Emperor Charles V.; 
here his divorce from Katherine was assumed to be decided, and 
here assembled the Parliament by which Wolsey was deprived. 

What Londoner is not familiar with the stately old residences 
of great merchants that still stand in quiet courts and narrow 
lanes adjacent to the great highways of commerce? And if 
“ merchant princes ” had their sumptuous abodes, noblemen and 
courtiers had their town inns within the city walls, but the latter 
seem to have migrated westward before the time of the Great 
Fire. The town residence of the great northern family of Neville 
was in Leaden (originally Leydon) Flail Street; that of Sir John 
de Lumley, another lord of the county palatine of Durham, was 
in Wood Street; Shaftesbury (originally Thanet) House, on the 
east side of Aldersgate Street, was built by Inigo Jones for the 
Tuftons, Earls of Thanet, but became a tavern, and then a dis¬ 
pensary; London House, originally Peter House, was long the 
town mansion of the Bishops of London after the Great Fire; 
and the Earl of Berkeley’s house, with its gardens, was in 
St. John’s Lane, not far from Smithfield, the site of it was 
advertised to be sold for building on in the year 1685. The Fire of 
London, more than the change of manners, has been the great 
destroyer of most of the old town inns of noble families which 
formerly existed in the City. The notices of them which occur 
in wills and other documents show that persons of rank and 


LONDINIANA. 


217 


celebrity formerly resided in parts of the City where their succes¬ 
sors certainly would not think of living now. 

w e pass on to the history of more celebrated edifices on the 
line of the Strand, and, first, of that stately pile of building, 
Somerset House, the antecedents of which may well make it one 
of the chief curiosities of the metropolis. To obtain space and 
building materials for his new palace, the “ Protector ” Somerset 
demolished Strand (or Chester’s) Inn, where that old poet 
Occleve formerly dwelt, and the town inns of four bishops, 
besides the church and tower of St. John of Jerusalem, the 
great north cloister of old St. PauPs Cathedral, and the church 
of St. Mary, the site of which became part of the garden of 
“ Somerset Palace.” It was the first building erected in England 
in the Italian style of architecture. The ambitious Protector 
began his palace in 1547, but (as everybody knows) he never 
inhabited it; and, on his attainder and execution, in 1552, it 
came to the Crown, and was given by Edward VI. to his sister 
Elizabeth, who resided in it during some part of her reign. It 
passed on her death to Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I., 
having been settled as a jointure-house of the Queen-Consort, 
and thence acquired the name of Denmark House. Queen Hen¬ 
rietta Maria established here a Capuchin fraternity. Pepys men¬ 
tions the grandeur of the Queen-Mother’s court at Somerset 
Palace after the Restoration, and “the great stone stairs in the 
garden with the brave echo.” The palace retained long after 
the departure of the Stuarts the characteristic features which had 
marked it in the seventeenth century; and, when describing it 
in 1720, Strype mentions its “ front with stone pillars, its 
spacious square court, great hall and guard-room, large staircase, 
and room of state, its courts, and most pleasant garden, with 
water-gate, fountain, and statues.” But at that time its proudest 
days had passed. “ The venerable court-way from the Strand, 
and the dark and winding steps which led down to the garden, 
beneath the shade of ancient and lofty trees (says the author of 
the “ Curiosities of London ”), were the last lingering features of 
Somerset Place, and seemed characteristic of the gloomy lives 
and fortunes of its noble and royal inmates.” Parliament having, 
in 1775, settled on Queen Charlotte Buckingham House, in lieu 


218 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


of old Somerset House, the latter gave place to the sumptuous 
range of government offices which now surround the square. 

Not far westward from Somerset House, but decayed to an 
almost ruinous state for many years before the rise of that ambi¬ 
tious structure of Tudor sacrilege, stood the more ancient Palace 
of the Savoy, so named from Peter of Savoy, uncle of Eleanor 
(La Belle) of Provence, who was created Earl of Richmond by 
Henry III., and received the grant of this part of the river- 
banks, by the service of yielding annually at the Exchequer 
three barbed arrows. As rebuilt by Henry, first Duke of Lan¬ 
caster, it was a strong and stately castle. Here John, King of 
France, the royal captive of Poietiers, returned to die in 1364; 
and here Chaucer was the guest of “ time-honoured Lancaster,” 
and wrote some of his poems. But in 1381 the torch and rude 
hoof of rebellion demolished the old royal abode, and it remained 
in ruin, not only during the Wars of the Roses, but until 1505, 
when Henry VII. “royally endowed” a hospital, under invo¬ 
cation of St. John the Baptist, to receive and lodge a hundred 
poor sick people and wayfarers. But his work of charity did 
not revive the ancient splendour of the Savoy, or long escape 
the spoiler; and, from the time of the surrender, the extensive 
buildings, which had so long been the object of royal care, expe¬ 
rienced strange vicissitudes. They became the meeting-place of 
the Independents in 1658, and the refuge of Calvinists; under 
the House of Hanover all sorts of Protestant Dissenters nestled 
in their precincts, and there the latitudinarian found liberty in 
creeds, and the debtor sanctuary in debt. Contemporaneously 
with the Fleet marriages, the chaplain of the Savoy carried on a 
like traffic within its privileged recesses. Hollar’s scarce etching, 
in 1650, represents a still imposing river-front, a fortress-like 
building with embattled parapets, and square towers at the 
angles, but partaking of the ruins in which monarchy itself was 
then lying; and a view in 1792 shows the building hastening to 
decay. After being used for barracks, and as a military prison, 
the Savoy was demolished on the erection of Waterloo Bridge, 
in 1816, and so its memories ouly are among the curiosities of 
London. The chapel of the hospital, however, dates from the 
time of Henry VII., and contains monuments little known. 


LONDINIANA. 


219 


Glancing from these sites of regal tradition to the eastern side 
of Somerset House, we may remind the reader of that other col¬ 
lection of antique buildings, which there stood amidst spacious 
gardens—the once famous Arundel House. Taken from the see 
of Bath, in the time of “Protector” Somerset, it became the 
abode of nobles who have left their names in English history ; 
and to its gardens Thomas Earl of Arundel, the magnificent 
collector, transplanted the noble collection of marbles which he 
brought from Italy.* The illustrious names of Howard, Arundel, 
Surrey, and Norfolk, given to the somewhat dingy streets that 
traverse its site, are all that remain to preserve upon this spot the 
memory of one of the most characteristic of the mansions of 
nobles in former days. The many other ancient inns and resi¬ 
dences of prelates and noble families that formerly stood on the 
line of the Strand, have all shared the fate of Arundel House. 
Clifford’s Inn, on the north of Fleet Street, still, however, recals 
the memory of the Cliffords, Earls of Cumberland. 

To the north of St. Mary-le-Strand, and at the end of Drury 
Lane (originally the via de Aldwych) was the mansion of the 
Drurys, which flourished in the reign of James I., and was 
re-built by William Lord Craven, from whom the new building 
took its name. In its last decay, the spacious mansion became 
a public house, bearing the sign of the Queen of Bohemia, in 
memory of its former occupation by the daughter of James I. On 
the site of the house Philip Astley built his Olympic Pavilion. 

There are many stately houses in Soho, which was a sort of 
Court quarter of London little more than a century ago. The 
south side of the square was occupied by the house which Wren 
built for the Duke of Monmouth, In Carlisle Street was the 
sumptuous mansion of the Dowager Lady Carlisle, who here 
enjoyed her “cherry orchard and flower garden.” Long before 
Soho Square was built, there were inns of bishops and mansions 
of judges between Chancery Lane and Ely Place. The house at 
the north-east corner of Leicester Fields, which gave its name to 
that locality, was built for Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, who 
died in 1677. Here Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia died, and 

* In the succeeding article are some notices of their dispersion. 


220 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


here George III. was residing at the time of his accession to the 
throne. Adjacent to it, on the west, was the residence of the 
Earl of Aylesbury, where the Marquis of Carmarthen, in 1698, 
entertained Peter the Great. It was named Saville House, from 
being the property of the Saville family. It has since become (to 
use the words of Mr. Timbs) a very Noah’s ark of exhibitions of 
greater variety than delicacy. Even in St. Giles’s some names of 
great families linger, and recall a time when the streets that bear 
them had not fallen into their present decadence. 

But no district of the metropolis was formerly more remarkable 
for residences of nobles and great ecclesiastics than Southwark— 
that terra incognita to most of the dwellers on the Middlesex side 
of the river. As all coin collectors know, Southwark had its 
mint under the Saxon as well as the Norman kings. In Southwark 
bishop Walter Gifford founded, in the reign of William Rufus, 
the palace afterwards so long known as Winchester House. Park 
Street preserves in name, but seems to mock, the memory of the 
spacious park by which it was surrounded even down to the six¬ 
teenth century, and in 1814 the venerable remains of its great 
hall were exposed by a fire. At that time the decaying palace 
had been let for a warehouse and wharfs. All who know 
St. Saviour’s are familiar with the noble remains of ecclesiastical 
architecture that belong to the palmy days of Winchester palace. 
Then, there was Rochester House, anciently the palace of the 
Bishops of Rochester, which, in its last decline, became parcelled 
out into sixty-two tenements. Southwark, too, could boast some 
famous hostelries. Standing with open country beyond it was 
the Tabard (now the Talbot), in the High Street, the inn where 
Chaucer and the pilgrims assembled, and where also the Abbat of 
Plyde had his lodging. The buildings of Chaucer’s time were 
standing in 1602, but the oldest buildings now remaining are of 
Elizabethan date. The town inn of the Priors of Lewes was 
nearly opposite to St. Olave’s church, and its crypt existed until 
the new London Bridge approaches were made. In Lambeth 
there were many ancient houses, which were formerly inhabited 
by persons of historic note. One of the chief of these was the 
house in Church Street, which was the mansion of the Earl of 
Norfolk, in the fourteenth century, and where the celebrated 



LONDINIANA. 


221 


Earl of Surrey resided; another remarkable house was that which 
Henry VIII. granted to the Bishop of Carlisle. 

Passing from noble residences that have fallen into decay, we 
may glance at another interesting class of London curiosities— 
the houses, still standing, which are associated with the memory 
of literary men. We will mention those only which cluster in 
the locality of Fleet Street, yet it seems almost trite to refer to 
the Mitre tavern, the favourite rendezvous of Johnson’s evening 
parties; to Gough Square, where (at No. 17) he compiled the 
greater portion of his “ Dictionaryto Bolt Court, where he 
lived from 1766 to the time of his death ; to Wine Office Court, 
where Goldsmith began the “ Vicar of Wakefield;” to Salisbury 
Square, where Richardson wrote his Pamela; to the room in 
Crane Court, in which Newton sat in the presidential chair of the 
Royal Society; to the bay-window house (No. 184 and 185), in 
Fleet Street, where Drayton lived; to the house near the corner 
of Chancery Lane, where Cowley was born; or to the house two 
doors to the west of Chancery Lane, where Isaac Walton lived 
after 1632. 

Some localities and buildings are remarkable for having seen 
the beginning of things that are now common and familiar. 
Thus, by London Stone dwelt Henry Fitz-Alwyn, draper, first 
Mayor of London; in the ticket-house of the Tower, the visitor 
stands upon the site of the Lion Tower, where Henry III. had 
the first elephant that was kept in England; in the Almonry, at 
Westminster, Caxton set up the first printing press that was used 
in England, in a house which was standing until November, 1845, 
when it fell down, as if in anticipation of its doom from the archi¬ 
tects of Victoria Street; in the ceiling of the chapel royal of St. 
James’s, we see one of the earliest specimens of the decorative art 
which Holbein introduced; in Fleet Street the first stationery 
marts of the printers for the sale of books were established; in the 
Savoy chapel the liturgy of the Church of England was first publicly 
read; in the former hall of the Merchant-taylors’ Company, the 
national anthem “ God save the King ” was first performed, on 
an occasion when James I. was present; at the western door of 
old St. Paul’s,* in 1569, the first recorded lottery was drawn ; on 
the site of Buckingham Palace, in Arlington House, it has been 


222 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


conjectured that a cup of tea was first drunk in England, the 
introduction of that luxury being attributed to Bennet, Earl of 
Arlington (it would seem, however, that tea was known east of 
Temple-bar as early as 1657); in St. Michael’s alley, Cornhill, 
was Bowman’s, the first coffee-house that was established, which 
dates from a time many years before the names of coffee and tea 
had become naturalized words in London; from the old galleried 
inn-yard, at the back of the Three Kings’ stables gateway, Pic¬ 
cadilly, the first coach to Bath started; in St. Giles’s there existed 
until very lately the district known as the Rookery, where the 
Irish first colonized London ; in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s-inn- 
fields, is the site of the theatre (the Duke’s), where,'on the 1st 
March, 1662, “ Romeo and Juliet” was acted for the first time; 
and in Clerkenwell, on a site now occupied by a distillery, stood 
the Red Bull theatre, where women first acted on the English 
stage. 

Less familiar to the public eye, but not less properly included 
amongst the curiosities of London, are the National Records and 
public collections of manuscripts; a class of historical monuments 
possessing inestimable value. The Reports of the Commissioners 
on the Public Records made known to the nation some years 
since the vast mine of historical riches that lay buried in the cold 
and dusty chambers of the different repositories of records; and 
many recent publications have not only explained the origin, 
character and contents of the respective classes of Rolls, but have 
afforded examples of the light they throw on the manners and 
customs of our ancestors, and of the condition of our towns and 
the country generally, from the time of the Norman kings to 
comparatively recent periods. The public records, in fact, illus¬ 
trate every topic of national history, civil and political, social and 
religious, moral and material, and may be truly said to form 
materials for history unequalled in the world. The earliest and 
most celebrated of our documentary curiosities is “ Domesday 
Book,” the Register of the lands of England which was framed 
by direction of William the Conqueror, and which, treasured in 
the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, still remains in 
pristine freshness, fair and legible as when first written. It is the 
earliest English record in existence, and Spelman, in his anti- 







LONDINIANA. 


223 


quarian enthusiasm, pronounced it the most noble as well as 
ancient written monument of Britain. It is a travelled book, for, 
in early times, precious as it was always deemed, it occasionally 
accompanied the king’s judges on tbeir circuit. It was originally 
deposited in the Chapter House at old royal Winchester, and 
afterwards was usually kept, with the great seal, in the King’s 
Exchequer at Westminster, but in the reign of Queen Anne it 
was deposited in the Chapter House, which was repaired for the 
reception of public records soon after 1705. 

As to the public collections of manuscripts in the British 
Museum and elsewhere in London, a separate article might be 
devoted to the merest outline of their more remarkable features, 
and on the present occasion we cannot enter on this tempting 
ground. The oldest existing library in the metropolis is that of 
Lincoln’s-Inn, which can boast a magnificent collection of juri¬ 
dical works and manuscripts little known beyond the circle of 
legal students and practitioners. It was founded in 1497. 

The Registry of Wills in Doctors’ Commons is in itself a 
treasure-house of documentary curiosities. Its locality, moreover, 
constitutes one of the most curious features of the metropolis. 
Even the dreaded penetralia of Chancery Lane cannot boast any¬ 
thing equal to the seclusion, the silence, the mystery, and the 
shade of Doctors’ Commons—that imposing old-world region, 
where the hopes and fears, the frailties, the passions, the loves, 
the charities of many lives are discerned, in ever-shifting variety, 
as in a camera obscura. It seems to form the citadel of the Civil 
and Canon Law, in the midst of the busy commercial life of the 
nineteenth century, and its very atmosphere and aspect are redo¬ 
lent of antiquity. We have no room left for going into the 
history of Doctors’ Commons; but it appears that the Civilians 
and Canonists lived in a collegiate manner, taking commons 
together, as early as the time of Elizabeth, and they have still 
their common-hall. According to the dictum of Her Majesty’s 
Solicitor General on a debate last session, their learned successors 
in these sombre precincts do not enjoy “the clear light of day;” 
but in their ancient twilight they still attract to themselves a 
multitude of transactions that affect the dearest interests of society, 
and relate as well to the living as the dead. In Doctors’ Com- 


224 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


mons is the Court of Arches—removed thither from the Norman 
arcades of St. Mary-le-Bow—a court of ill-omen to married people, 
and possessing if not exercising the grave attributes of ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction. In Doctors’ Commons is the Consistory Court of the 
Bishop of the diocese; the High Court of Admiralty of the Seas, 
before the judge of which tribunal a silver oar is carried as the 
emblem of his office; and the Court where wills have long been 
proved and administrations granted within the Prerogative of the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and where causes testamentary are 
heard. In Doctors’ Commons is the Faculty Office, from which 
dispensations formerly issued to eat flesh on prohibited days, and 
in which faculties to Notaries and dispensations to the Clergy are 
still granted. In Doctors’ Commons are various episcopal regis¬ 
tries, where you get licenses for marriage in ominous proximity to 
the offices in which people sue for divorce; and where, if you are 
fortunate enough to possess bona notabilia in the province, your 
executors will carry your will. The Prerogative Office is one of 
the most remarkable features of Doctors’ Commons. In the year 
1853-1854, no less than from thirteen thousand to fourteen 
thousand wills were proved here, representing property worth 
more than fifty millions, and five thousand administrations were 
granted of the effects of intestate persons. So much for Doctors’ 
Commons—a convenient loophole of retreat from which 

-to see the stir 

Of the great Babel and not feel the crowd. 

But here we must bring our survey to a close. It has been 
directed to the London of the Past rather than of the Present; 
for, as it would not be possible to describe all the curiosities of 
the great Metropolis in the limits of an article, we have grouped 
together those only which relate in particular to its history and 
progress. London is a metropolis of marvels; and the well- 
known features which surround and are most familiar to the 
Londoner in his daily life, are not less worthy of attention than 
those connected with its history—they are themselves curiosities 
without an equal in the world. Where can we find anything to 
compare with “ the wonderful immensity of London”—a province 
of brick and mortar that has an area of 115 square miles, a popu- 






LONDINIANA. 


225 


lation exceeding that which dwells in the 16,000 square miles of 
Denmark, and assessed property exceeding 12,000,000^. in value 
—an amount far beyond that of the whole kingdom of Scotland ? 
Where (it has been asked) can we see such masses of population 
as throng the streets of London ? Where such a variety of 
human life—of “ many-languaged men”? Where can we see 
such brilliant gatherings of rank ; such patrician splendour and 
refinement; such vast commercial wealth? What, indeed, is the 
city of the genii compared to London by night, with its millions 
of lamps and its thousands of chariots? Where can we traverse 
highways so commodious, cross such bridges, tread such pave¬ 
ments, or view such scenes as the mighty river presents from the 
crowded docks at commercial Blackwall to the historic palaces of 
ancient Westminster? Where can we see such mansions of the 
nobility; such priceless collections of art; such sumptuous club¬ 
houses ; such breezy public parks ? Where can we find such 
marvels in regard to the supply of food and water for the daily 
use of more than 2,400,000 inhabitants? Where such provisions 
for order and for the enjoyment of life and property? Where can 
we see institutions that mark such regard for moral as well as 
material advancement; such libraries, museums, and public col¬ 
lections? Where such noble charities and spacious hospitals for 
indigence and suffering? Where can we be surrounded by such 
enduring traces of the piety and patriotism of our forefathers? 
Where can we tread ground invested with so much historic dig¬ 
nity and once pressed by the footsteps of such memorable and 
illustrious men? Where can we see such suggestive buildings, 
such “ petrifactions of history,” as remain in London? Where a 
feudal stronghold with such memories as the Tower of London? 
Where such a noble structure of regal piety and monastic devo¬ 
tion as the Abbey at Westminster? Westminster, where we 
see allied the edifices of a nation’s faith, liberties, and laws; 
where, near the time-honoured abode of kings, converge the 
ruling forces of an empire on which the sun never sets; and where, 
in the sumptuous pile now risen on the ancient royal site, our 
constitutional legislature assembles beneath the monitory shadow 
of the venerable abbey—“ that noble epic in stone,” which has 
the faith of ages and the majesty of England for its theme. 

Q 


NOTE ON ARUNDEL HOUSE IN THE STRAND, AND 
THE DISPERSION OF ARUNDEL MARBLES. 


[“Notes and Queries,” vol. iv. p. 361.] 

This mansion, or, rather, collection of buildings, the site of 
which had been taken from the see of Bath in the time of 
“Protector” Somerset, appears from Hollar’s Views to have 
comprised a range of irregular buildings, principally of red brick, 
erected at various periods, and combined without much regard to 
elegance or uniformity ; although its noble owner, the Earl of 
Arundel, who was so celebrated as a collector of works of art and 
a preserver of learning, is said to have been the first person who 
introduced uniformity in building, and to have been made chief 
commissioner for promoting this object in London. Arundel 
House stood between the gardens of Essex House on the east, 
and of Somerset (then called Denmark) House, on the west, its 
pleasure grounds extending to the river and commanding a fine 
view of the city to London Bridge, of Westminster, and of the 
country to the south and west. In this house, as Mr. Cunning¬ 
ham mentions in his excellent “ Hand-Book,” Hollar drew his 
well-known view of London as seen from the roof. 

Of this quaint old palace or town inn, Thomas Howard, Earl of 
Arundel, was lord in the first half of the seventeenth century. It 
is hardly necessary to say that this illustrious nobleman was son 
of Philip Howard Earl of Arundel, the faithful and constant, 
who, being persecuted for his religion, was suffered by Queen 
Elizabeth to languish in the Tower, where he died in 1595, and 
great-grandson of the accomplished Henry Howard Earl of 
Surrey, who was beheaded in 1547 by “ the Nero of the Tudor 
race.” Thomas Howard was restored to the Earldom of Arundel 



ARUNDEL HOUSE IN THE STRAND. 


227 


by James I., and in the reigns of that king and of Charles I., 
who held him in honour, received other marks of royal favour. 
His chief distinction, however, was derived from his munificent 
patronage of learning and the arts. He is called 44 the only great 
subject of England who by his conversation and great collections 
set a value” on the ancient productions of transalpine lands; and 
he began, about 1614, to decorate with the precious and costly 
works of art which he had collected in Greece and in his beloved 
Italy, the galleries and gardens of his palace in the Strand. The 
earl departed this life at Padua on the 4th October (or, as another 
account* says, the 26th September), 1646, in the sixty-first year 
of his age, and was interred at Arundel. He had been two years 
before created Earl of Norfolk, in consideration of his lineal 
descent from Thomas de Brotlierton, Earl of Norfolk, a younger 
son of King Edward I. His will (which he had made at Dover 
six years before his death) was proved in the Prerogative Court, 
and is printed in the 44 Howard Anecdotes.” His marbles, 
medals, statues, books, and pictures (he is said to have possessed 
44 a larger number of Hans Holbein’s works than any other 
person, and to have been the first nobleman of our nation who 
set a value on them”), formed at that periodf one of the finest 
and most splendid collections in England. Many of the articles 
of vertu and of the books were during his lifetime in the posses¬ 
sion of Alathea his countess (who was third daughter and co-heir 
of Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury), from whom some of them 
were obtained by his younger son, Sir William Howard (the 
unfortunate Viscount Stafford, who was beheaded in 1680, on 
perjured testimony) ; and a portion of the marble statues and 
library devolved upon Henry Frederick, his eldest son, who, in 
his father’s lifetime, was summoned to Parliament as Lord Mow¬ 
bray, and succeeded him as Earl of Arundel, and who died in 
1652, leaving Thomas, his eldest son, who became Earl of 
Arundel, Surrey, and Norfolk, and was, at the Restoration in 

* “Hist. Anecdotes of some of the Howard Family,” by Mr. Charles 
Howard of Greystoke. 8vo. Lond. 1769. The writer became Duke of 
Norfolk on the death of his cousin Edward, eighth duke, in 1777. 

f See Sir Chas. Young’s Preface to the (privately printed) Catalogue of 
MSS. given to the College of Arms by Henry Duke of Norfolk. 

Q 2 


228 ARUNDEL HOUSE IN THE STRAND, 

1660, restored to the Dukedom of Norfolk, with limitation to the 
heirs male of his father. This nobleman died unmarried in 1677, 
and his brother Henry (who had been created Earl of Norfolk, 
and in 1672 Earl Marshal of England, to him and the heirs male 
of his body, with other limitations in default,) thereupon became 
sixth Duke of Norfolk. By him the marbles and library were 
finally dispersed. 

The Royal Society had held their meetings since the Fire of 
London at Arundel House; and we find that Evelyn author of 
the Sylva , one of the founders of the Society, observing in 1667 
‘‘these precious monuments miserably neglected, and scattered 
up and down about the garden and other parts of Arundel 
House, and how exceedingly the corrosive air of London im¬ 
paired them,” induced the last-named nobleman to bestow 
on the University of Oxford “ his Arundelian marbles, those 
celebrated and famous inscriptions, Greek and Latine, gathered 
with so much cost and industrie from Greece, by his illustrious 
grandfather the magnificent Earl of Arundel.”— Diary, vol. ii. 
p. 295. 

In 1676, Mr. Evelyn induced the Duke to grant to the Royal 
Society the Arundel library, into which many of the MSS. for¬ 
merly belonging to Lord William Howard (the famous ancestor 
of the Earl of Carlisle), who died in 1640, had found their way 
from Naworth Castle in the lifetime of Thomas Earl of Arundel. 
In the same volume of Evelyn’s Diary, p. 445, is a minute, under 
date 29th August, 1678, from which it appears that he was then 
called to take charge of the books and MSS., and remove, to the 
then home of the Royal Society in Gresham College, such of 
them as did not relate to the office of Earl Marshal and to 
heraldry, his grace intending to bestow the books relating to 
those subjects upon the Heralds’ College. It is known, however, 
that many chronicles and historical MSS. of great value formed 
part of the donation to the College of Arms; and it would appear 
from a document in the handwriting of Sir William Dugdale, 
referred to by Sir Charles Young, that many monastic registers 
and cartularies which were taken to Gresham College, had never¬ 
theless been intended by the Duke for the college over which, 
as Earl Marshal, he presided. This nobleman died 1684. 


AND DISPERSION OF ARUNDEL MARBLES. 229 

In 1678, Arundel House itself was demolished.* This was 
done pursuant to an Act of Parliament, which had been obtained 
for the purpose of entailing the estate on heirs male, exempt from 
being charged with jointures or debts, and empowering the Duke 
to let a part of the site of the house and gardens to builders, at 
reserved ground-rents, which were to form a fund for building a 
mansion for the family on that part of the gardens adjacent to 
the river. The house was planned by Wren, but the design was 
abandoned about the year 1690, when Henry seventh Duke of 
Norfolk, who was a favourite of William Prince of Orange, 
obtained an Act of Parliament empowering him to lease the 
remainder of the garden-ground for a term of forty-one years, 
and to appropriate to himself the fund which had accumulated. 
He accordingly let the ground to Mr. Stone of New Inn, an 
attorney, and buildings of a very different character to the palatial 
mansion that had been contemplated, ere long overspread the 
site of Arundel House. The seventh Duke died in 1701. It 
appears that his friend King William had made him Governor of 
Windsor Castle; but at his death 12,000^. were due to him for 
arrears of salary, which sum it is said was never paid. 

The museum of objects illustrative of natural history, and great 
part of the furniture of Arundel House, were removed to Stafford 
House (situated without Buckingham Gate, where Stafford Row 
was subsequently built), in which house, in the year 1720, the 
Duchess of Norfolk, consort of Thomas eighth Duke, sold an 
immense quantity of plate, jewels, furniture, pictures, and curi¬ 
osities. Besides these, however, many family reliques were at 
that time in the hands of different branches of this noble family, 
as, for example, the grace-cup of St. Thomas of Canterbury 
(which had belonged to Thomas Earl of Arundel, and is now in 
the possession of Philip Henry Howard, Esq., of Corby Castle), 
and the wand of office of High Constable of England, formerly 
used by the Earl, and which in 1757 was in the possession of the 
Earl of Stafford. 

Of the fate of the marbles which remained at the time of the des¬ 
truction of Arundel House, some interesting particulars are given 
by Mr. James Theobald in a letter written from Surrey Street, 

* Cunningham’s Hand Book, quoting Walpole’s Anecdotes, ii. lo3. 


230 


ARUNDEL HOUSE IN THE STRAND, 


10th May, 1757, and addressed to Lord Willoughby de Parham, 
President of the Society of Antiquaries. 

u As there were many fine statues, basso-relievos, and marbles, 
they were received,” says Mr. Theobald, u into the lower part of 
the gardens, and many of them were placed under a colonnade 
there; and the upper part of the grounds, next the Strand, was 
let to builders, who continued the street next the Strand, from 
Temple Bar towards Westminster, and built thereon the several 
streets called Arundel, Norfolk, and Surrey Streets, leading from 
the Strand as far as the cross street called Howard Street, which 
ran parallel therewith. A cross wall was built to separate the 
ground let for building from that reserved for the family man¬ 
sion ; and many of the workmen, to save the expense of carrying 
away the rubbish, threw it over this cross wall, where it fell upon 
the colonnade, and at last by its weight broke it down, and, fall¬ 
ing upon the statues and marbles placed there, broke several of them. 
A great part of these statues, in that sad condition, were pur¬ 
chased by Sir William Fermor, from whom the present Earl of 
Pomfret is descended, and he removed them to his seat at Easton 
Neston in Northamptonshire, where he employed some statuary 
to repair such as were not too much dilapidated. There they 
continued until the year 1755, when the present countess made 
a present of them to the University of Oxford. In this collec¬ 
tion was the famous sleeping Cupid represented lying on a lion’s 
skin, to express his absolute dominion over fierceness and strength, 
some roses being scattered on the skin, probably as emblems of 
silence and secrecy, as Cupid presented that flower to Har- 
pocrates, the god of silence, as a bribe to him to conceal the 
amours of his mother, to whom the rose is also supposed to be 
sacred. Below the foot of Cupid on the cushion is the figure of 
a lizard, which some have supposed to have been placed here as 
a known ingredient of great efficacy in love-charms; others, as a 
proper attendant on those who sleep, from an opinion that this 
reptile wakes them on approach of danger. But the real design 
of the sculptor is, rather to perpetuate his name by this symbol, 
for it was Saurus. The Romans, observing how much the 
Grecian sculptors excelled them in this art, whenever they em¬ 
ployed them to execute any work of this sort forbade them to 


AND DISPERSION OF ARUNDEL MARBLES. 


231 


put, as had been customary, their names to their works; and 
Pliny tells us that Saurus had recourse to the expedient of 
putting the lizard upon this figure, as well as on another which 
he executed jointly with Batrachus, on which they were not 
permitted to put their names; they therefore placed on the bases 
the figures of a frog and a lizard. 

“ Some other of these broken statues, not thought worth re¬ 
placing, were begged by one Boyder Cuper, who had been a 
servant (I think gardener) to the family, and were removed by 
him to decorate a piece of garden ground which he had taken 
opposite Somerset water-gate, in the parish of Lambeth,* which 
at that time was a place of resort for the citizens and others in 
holiday time, still called after him by the name of Cuper’s, and 
thence corruptly Cupid’s Gardens, which were much of the same 
nature as Sadler’s Wells and Mary’Bone Gardens. Here they 
continued for a considerable time, till Mr. John Freeman of 
Fawley Court, near Henley-on-Thames, and Mr. Edward Waller of 
Beaconsfield, observing something masterly in the designs and 
drapery of several of them, desired I would treat with Mr. John 
Cuper for them. I agreed with him for 7 51., and they were 
divided between these two gentlemen, and sent part to Fawley 
Court, and part to Beaconsfield, where they remain. 

“ What statues and broken fragments yet remained undisposed 
of in Arundel Gardens, the Duke obtained leave from the Crown 
to remove across the water, just on the opposite shore, to a 
piece of waste ground in the manor of Kennington, belonging 
to the Principality of Wales; and one Mr. Arundel, a relation 
of the Duke’s, I think, at the latter end of the reign of King 
Charles II. or King James II., did obtain a grant of the said 
piece of ground at a small rent for a term of years, which was 
renewed on paying a fine.” (These are again referred to.) 

“ What were thought not worth removing were buried in the 
foundations of the buildings in the lower parts of Norfolk Street, 
and the other buildings on the gardens. Mr. Aislabie, who in¬ 
habited one of these houses, found a broken statue in his cellar, 
which he carried to his seat in Yorkshire; and he tells me there 
is a sarcophagus in the cellar of Mr. James Adamson, who lives 

* The Waterloo Bridge Road now runs over these gardens. 


232 


ARUNDEL HOUSE IN THE STRAND. 


in the corner house on the left hand going into the lower part of 
Norfolk Street. 

“ As to those carried over the water and laid on the Prince of 
Wales’ ground, Mr. Arundel, soon after he obtained the grant of 
the ground, let it for a timber-yard, and the person who took it 
built up a wharf; and when the foundation of St. Paul’s was laid,* 
great quantities of the rubbish were brought over thither to raise 
the ground, which used to be overflowed every spring tide, so 
that, by degrees, these statues and other marbles were buried 
under the rubbish, and lay there for many years forgotten. 
About 1712 this piece of ground was rented by my father, who, 
on digging foundations, frequently met with some of these broken 
fragments, which were taken up and laid on the surface of the 
ground. The late Earl of Burlington having heard of the things 
which had been dug up, and that they had formed part of the 
Arundel collection, chose what he pleased and carried them down 
to Chiswick House, where he placed one piece of basso-relievo 
on the pedestal of an obelisk he erected there. Some years after 
this, the Right Hon. Lord Petre told me he had heard that on 
some parts of my ground there were still many valuable frag¬ 
ments buried, and obtained my leave to employ men to bore the 
ground. After six days’ searching of every part, just as they 
were going to give over, they fell upon something which gave 
them hopes, and upon opening the ground they discovered six 
statues without heads or arms, lying close to each other, some of 
a colossal size, the drapery of which was thought to be exceed¬ 
ingly fine. These were soon afterwards sent down to Worksop, 
the seat of the Duke of Norfolk, where they remain. 

“ There were some few blocks of a greyish veined marble, out 
of which I endeavoured to cut some' chimney-pieces and slabs to 
lay in my house, the Belvidere, in Lambeth parish, over against 
York Buildings. The fragment of a column, eighteen inches 
diameter, I carried into Berkshire to my house, Waltham Place, 
and converted it into a roller for my bowling-green.” 

Sic transit gloria mundi! 

* The 1st May, 1674, is given as the time when the ground began to be 
cleared for the new Metropolitan Cathedral. 




THE RENAISSANCE AT ALNWICK CASTLE. 


[“NewMonthly Magazine,” March, 1857.] 

The present age is hardly less marked by its great utilitarian 
works of applied science and mechanical skill, than by a revived 
taste for architecture, and an outward homage, if not an advancing 
love, for art; and while Legislators and Royal Commissioners of 
Fine Arts are still devising such adornments for their pile of 
profuse workmanship—the new palace at old regal Westminster 
—as may recal the splendour of the Plantagenets, the Duke of 
Northumberland is transforming the northern stronghold of his 
ancestors in the spirit in which Augustus transformed Rome, 
and is bringing to the adornment of Alnwick Castle such decor¬ 
ative arts of Italy as the martial Percys never knew. 

Umbrian art is said to have been brought to England by the 
Romans, and to have once flourished in the territory that after¬ 
wards became the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria; the 
arts again came from Italy to this remote region not long after 
its conversion to Christianity (or nearly twelve centuries ago), in 
the service of the Anglo-Saxon Church ; and now Italy gives her 
Renaissance decoration to the chief edifice of Northumberland—a 
country where, perhaps, for twelve hundred years Italian artists have 
not been seen engaged on native works. As Leonardo da Vinci 
and subsequent great masters of Italy enriched the chateaux of 
French kings with productions to which the development of 
native talent became attributable, so Italian artists of this day, at 
the instance of a great English nobleman, are adorning his castle 
with works which seem to revive the age of the tenth Leo before 
our eyes, and which, in combination with the architectural works 
and restorations in progress there under the direction of Mr. Salvin 
(employing more than two hundred and fifty persons), have raised 
and can hardly fail to keep alive a native school of art. 



234 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


To those costly works an especial interest is given by their 
great prospective importance, their dignified character, and the 
historical celebrity of Alnwick Castle ; and for these reasons, and 
because little is known about them at a distance, we will 
endeavour to describe briefly what is now in progress on the 
remote yet not unsung eminences of the Ain. A recent discus¬ 
sion at the Institute of British Architects on the very debatable 
question of combining Italian decoration with an English castle 
of mediaeval associations and aspect, has also directed much 
attention to the princely undertaking of the Duke of Northum¬ 
berland. 

Alnwick Castle—as doubtless our readers know—is situated in 
perhaps the finest part of the county, formerly commanding the 
great North-road, and within thirty miles of the Scotish Border. 
It stands upon a plateau which slopes by steep declivities on the 
north side to the river Ain. Stretching from its walls for miles 
is a magnificent park, through which the Ain gently flows by 
wooded hills and green meadows—once the lands of Carmelites 
and of Austin canons—before its waters mirror the castellated 
pride of Alnwick. The aspect and associations of these towers 
recall the days 

When English lords and Scotish chiefs were foes ; 

and the name of Alnwick Castle is famous in Border story from 
the time of the Norman conquest. Often have its walls “delayed 
the baffled strength ” of Scotish kings and all their hosts ; often 
have its halls received the royal and the noble, the brave and the 
fair of English history. The visitor may at this day stand beneath 
an archway under which crusaders and the mightiest of our 
sovereigns passed, and which saw the gallant Hotspur, whom 
Shakspeare celebrates, ride forth for his country and his king. 

But even in Saxon days a stronghold of some kind existed 
here ; and portions, besides the archway just referred to, remain of 
the Norman castle which was built by Ivo de Vesci, that bold 
companion of the Conqueror, who received with the Saxon 
heiress in marriage the lordly inheritance of Alnwick. At a 
later period—probably about five hundred years ago—when the 
castle and barony had come to the great family of Percy, the 



THE RENAISSANCE AT ALNWICK. 


235 


Norman fortress underwent considerable changes. The square 
Norman keep of the Lords de Yesci yielded to a picturesque 
group of semicircular and angular towers, forming—as at Conway 
and Carnarvon—a central keep inclosing a large court-yard, and 
surrounded by an area defended by curtain-walls fortified at 
various distances, like those of the Tower of London, by square 
and circular towers, and entered only from a barbican or gate¬ 
way on the west, which was defended by a drawbridge and all 
the stern appliances of that iron age. Each tower of the central 
keep seems to have had a distinct appropriation, and the whole of 
this Edwardian castle formed a fortress in which the lord might 
have held his own even if the outer towers should have fallen 
into the power of besiegers. The gate tower and its barbican (by 
which entrance is given from the town) retain enough of their 
original character to form a very bold and striking feature. An 
outer gateway opens into a narrow passage between two lofty 
walls, which was further defended by a portcullis and double 
gates. Within the ward or bailey to which the tower at the end 
of this passage gives access, some buildings stood which were 
removed in the latter half of the last century, so that a clear area 
extends round the central keep to the curtain-walls. This line of 
circumvallation resembles an isosceles triangle, the curtain-wall, 
in the centre of which the gate-tower rises, forming a base 416 
feet in length, the walls on either side sweeping for the length of 
680 feet to “ the Record Tower,” which forms what may be 
called the apex of the triangle at the eastern end. The area 
within the walls is divided into two wards by “ the Middle-gate 
Tower,” which connects the keep with the curtain-wall on the 
south side of the castle. The north side of the keep, from which 
there is a declivitv towards the river, does not appear to have 

i/ 

ever been encircled by the curtain-wall; and at the present day 
there is a modern embattled platform or terrace on that side, 
which commands an enchanting view over the park. 

The seven round towers and original square Norman tower 
which were grouped together in the Edwardian keep, formed a 
polygon around an inner court, which is entered, as the inner 
court was in the days of Edward III., under the square Norman 
tower, and the inner face of this archway is enriched with noble 


236 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Norman mouldings. A moat surrounded the keep ; over it was 
of course a drawbridge, and on either side of the square tower 
half-octagon towers were added by the second lord of the Percy 
line, when he executed the rest of the works of the Edwardian 
period. Below the porter’s lodge in this tower is a deep dungeon- 
prison, with dome-shaped roof, into whose dreaded gloom 
prisoners were lowered through the floor, and this grim feature 
suggestively contrasts 

-the antique age of bow and spear 

And feudal rapine clothed in iron mail, 

with our peaceful days, when none but friends can approach the 
noble lord of Alnwick Castle. Within the inner court is a draw- 
well in the thickness of the wall, the face of which, with its three 
pointed arches, has been judiciously preserved, and forms a 
picturesque feature. Several of the corner towers at the angles 
and on the curtain-walls form noble and commanding objects, 
and, with the ramparts and parapets that connect them, retain 
much of the mediaeval character of which the keep itself has been 
deprived by the alterations made in the latter half of last century; 
and much of the curtain-wall is, moreover, of Norman work, 
consisting of parallel courses of small square stones. In some of 
these towers, warders, armourers, and other retainers of the 
castle anciently dwelt; others were used for stables and by 
domestics; while particular towers of the central keep were 
distinctly appropriated to the family, their guests, and chief 
officers. The well-known “ Northumberland Household Book,” 
which in the reign of Henry VII. was ordained by Henry 
Algernon Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland, for his Yorkshire 
castles, helps one to form an idea of the regulated splendour of 
the establishment which the Lords of Alnwick here maintained 
when the castle was in its pride, which, however, it had ceased 
to be before the time of Henry VII. 

Such was Alnwick Castle as completed shortly before the 
glorious age of William of Wykeliam, by the second Henry de 
Percy of Alnwick, Earl of Northumberland, who is supposed to 
have added the stone figures which stood upon the battlements, 
and looked as if some former garrison had been suddenly turned 








THE RENAISSANCE AT ALNWICK. 237 

to stone, and fixed in tlieir attitude of defence. Nearly all the 
figures that now stand on the merlons were imitated from these 
sculptures—many of them uncouthly enough. These strange 
additions seem to have been placed on the battlements to break 
the horizontal lines of the castle, and give some variety of out¬ 
line ; or, possibly, it was remembered that the multitude of stone 
figures before the temple of Delphi frightened the Gauls from 
attacking it, as they took the statues for gods ; yet the Scots and 
Border robbers had little fear of gods of any kind, and must have 
soon found these stone warders very harmless. But to return to 
the Lords de Percy: it was the second lord, already mentioned, 
who defeated David of Scotland at the battle of Neville’s Cross. 
The great-grandson of the first Henry de Percy, of Alnwick, was 
created earl at the coronation of Richard II. His son was the 
gallant Hotspur of Shakspeare, who was slain at Shrewsbury, 
21st of July, 1403 ; and his son succeeded to the grandfather’s 
inheritance, and repaired the castle. He also fortified the town 
of Alnwick. Then came the Civil Wars, in which this nobleman 
fell, as did his son, who was slain at Towton Field; and after 
these disastrous events came the losses and forfeitures which their 
successors underwent for their noble devotion to their faith. The 
castle became dilapidated ; but at length Thomas de Percy— 
who in 1557 was created Earl of Northumberland—executed 
considerable works of building and repair. It was this nobleman 
who suffered the death of a martyr at York, on the 22nd of 
August, 1572, under Queen Elizabeth. After the Civil Wars 
and the Great Rebellion, the castle fell into considerable decay. 
But in the time of Hugh, thirteenth Earl and first Duke of 
Northumberland, Adam, the prolific architect, executed very 
extensive works, which, while they saved Alnwick Castle from 
ruin, deplorably changed its aspect. During these works the 
moat round the keep was filled up, and the earth was piled high 
against the central towers and curtain-walls. The old chapel in 
the middle ward was removed, many domestic offices were erected, 
and within the keep itself such important changes were made, 
that its towers were almost entirely reconstructed. I he isolated 
groups of chambers which they had hitherto contained were 
demolished, leaving little more than the shell of the walls on the 


238 


LECTUKES AND ESSAYS. 


outer side; the inner walls were carried into the court, and a 
range of lofty, modernised reception-rooms, ornamented with 
plaster-work, of the “ Strawberry-hill Gothic ” school, were 
formed on the first floor, to which a new staircase and entrance- 
hall gave access, hut the drawing-room could be reached only 
through the saloon or the dining-room, and one room was traversed 
in order to gain access to another, or approached by a circuitous 
route; while the kitchens were divided from the keep by the 
open archway under which company arrived, and there was no 
such facility of access to the bedchambers as to connect them 
with the other rooms of the castle. Then, externally, all the 
earlier character of the building was destroyed. The narrow 
apertures of former days were widened, and incongruous quatre- 
foils were inserted in an upper range. The style of these works 
of 1780 evinces a desire to achieve the decorative forms of 
mediaeval art, but is of the true Georgian type, and so thoroughly 
bad in its character, architecturally, that it has been found 
impossible to perpetuate such work. The transformations of that 
age, in short, deprived the castle of some its most characteristic 
features ; its feudal dignity was impaired, if not gone ; its exterior 
had lost the imposing features and variety of outline characteristic 
of mediaeval architecture, and had become tame and level; while, 
internally, it was sadly deficient in comfort, and none of its 
ancient grandeur remained. 

The present duke, therefore, formed a very noble design. He 
determined to remodel the keep or central group of towers, so as 
to combine suitable apartments with the retention of its castel¬ 
lated features, and to build a new tower, for the purpose of 
accomplishing that object, and also of giving grandeur and due 
subordination of parts to the exterior aspect. We wish that we 
had seen the last of the pretentious adaptations of mediaeval 
architecture to modern mansions, and that the attempts in the 
present century to restore existing mediaeval castles in the style 
of their period had not been, for the most part, such miserable 
failures, from Windsor downwards; but the days have come when 
the restoration of a genuine mediaeval castle is regarded as the 
preservation of an historical monument full of the noble thoughts 
and the skill of the artists of other days. At Alnwick Castle it 


THE RENAISSANCE AT ALNWICK. 


239 


is happily no longer necessary to defend the borders or repel 
besiegers, and the princely hospitalities of the house of Percy 
need not be dispensed within a fortress; but the restoration of the 
castle, as far as practicable, to its original character, is with great 
good taste aimed at in the present works. Mr. Salvin’s alter¬ 
ations have not caused the destruction of any ancient fabric, while 
the new tower he has built—appropriately called “ The Prudhoe 
Tower ”—is itself a feature which gives dignity and a culminating 
point to the grouping of the exterior, and restores to Alnwick 
Castle much of its original grandeur. Two towers were taken 
down: one to make room for the Prudhoe Tower, in which are 
the great staircase, vestibule, and library, and another to make 
room for the new chapel, and a staircase to the bedrooms; and by 
a corridor projected on arches and corbels, a separate access is 
given to the reception-rooms, while a covered drive below affords 
a suitable entrance. The new chapel is a very elegant Gothic 
structure, with vaulted roof, and the sculptured and mosaic 
decorations it is to receive will give it an interior of great richness 
and beauty. It would not be possible to render a description of 
the structural arrangements intelligible without going into details 
which would be more fitted for an architectural society than for 
general readers, and we therefore pass at once to the decorative 
treatment of the new library, and the saloon, dining-room, and 
drawing-room, which are retained in their former position, but 
enlarged and improved in form. 

The Duke of Northumberland determined to maintain in the 
interior decoration, of his castle the distinctive dignity insepa¬ 
rable from historic associations, and to adopt a lofty style of art, 
equally removed from the decorative caprices of the day, and the 
rigid if not unrefined arrangements which anciently surrounded 
the lords of Alnwick in their castle. The question was, whether 
a medieval style of decoration, in keeping with the external 
character of the building, was to be adapted to the requirements 
of modern splendour, or whether that classical style of art, which 
is associated in Italy with the architecture of Bramante and the 
frescoes of liaffaelle, was to be adopted in the decoration of these 
princely halls. On the one hand, very eminent authorities hold 
that the art of the reign of Edward III. is capable of being modi- 


240 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


fied and suited to modern requirements, the great principles of deco¬ 
ration being invariable ; and a tempting opportunity for adopting 
an English style and creating a school of mediaeval decoration was 
undoubtedly afforded by such great works. It was said (and 
very truly) that it does not follow from windows and ceilings 
being in mediaeval style, that the walls are to be hung with 
tapestry and the floors strewed with rushes. On the other hand, 
there was the absence of satisfactory specimens of revived me¬ 
diaeval decoration; there was the risk of failure; the adoption of 
the Renaissance style affected only the interior, and would not 
convert a mediaeval fortress into an Italian palace; and there was to 
be seen in Italy a system of decorative art prepared to the hand, 
full of dignity and beauty, and recommended by the sanction 
of three hundred years. Accordingly, the noble duke and his 
accomplished consort visited the most famous palaces in Italy, 
built or decorated in the Renaissance style of art adopted by the 
great artists of the sixteenth century, and determined that the 
elaborate carvings in some of the churches of Rome, and the 
costly enrichments of some of its patrician residences, should be 
the model for the interior decoration of Alnwick Castle. At 
Rome his grace obtained the assistance of the Commendatore 
Canina—an artist and archeologist distinguished for his enlight¬ 
ened investigation of ancient art, and his valuable publications, 
whose recent death is deplored no less in England than in Italy; 
and he availed himself of the graphic skill of Signor Montiroli 
and other artists, from whose drawings and specifications the 
ceilings, and portions of the walls, are being ornamented with 
carvings in wood of exquisite design and workmanship, refulgent 
in gilding and colour, and finished in the richest style of Italian 
art. The ceiling of the saloon (which is of rectangular and poly¬ 
gonal form, and occupies one of the circular towers) has been 
recently completed; and the fine relief and delicate design of the 
gilded carvings, and the richness and harmony of colours in the 
panels on which they are disposed, form an ensemble of unrivalled 
beauty. A painted frieze of classic design surrounds the room 
under the cornice; the walls are to be covered in yellow satin of 
Genoa tissue; the doors are in the same style as the ceiling, 
and are enriched with carvings on the panels and mouldings. 


THE RENAISSANCE AT ALNWICK. 


241 


Decorations in similar style are designed for the drawing-room and 
the ceiling of the library; but the carved ceiling of the dining¬ 
room is left of the natural tint of the wood, and the family 
portraits, intended to be collected here and hung on the carmine- 
red damask of the walls, will fitly surround the guests with histo¬ 
rical memories of the house of Percy. 

This slight sketch of the decorative works in progress at Aln¬ 
wick Castle, imperfect as it must necessarity be, will, at all events, 
show the character of that exotic which is now being trans¬ 
planted from the Tiber to be cherished on the Ain; and will indi¬ 
cate that they are works as far removed from the presumptuous 
abortions of ignorant wealth, as from that tradesmanly spirit of 
upholstery in decoration which has filled so many mansions with 
unartistic manufactures, that challenge admiration for what they 
seem to be and not by what they are. 

But more than this: the noble duke patriotically determined 
that these great decorative works should be executed upon the 
spot, and that native talent should be educated for the purpose. 
Artisans were accordingly collected; a school of art was formed; 
and it is gratifying to see that a feeling for art has been evoked, 
and that most of the carvers employed are not mere mechanical 
copyists. It is impossible to estimate too highly the important 
influences which such a school so fostered may exert in England. 
In conclusion, then, we respectfully congratulate the Duke of 
Northumberland on what he is doing with so much taste and 
munificence; and we hail the near approaching time when Aln¬ 
wick Castle—“the Windsor of the North "■—will occupy its proper 
position among the noblest historical edifices of our country. 


R 


HISTORICAL SKETCHES RELATING TO THE 
CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTHAL, IN 
NORTHUMBERLAND. 


[Read at a Meeting of tlie Tyneside Naturalists’ Club, held at the 
Rectory, Bothal, on the invitation of the Rev. Henry Hopwood, Rector.] 

The earliest document in which I have found the name of 
Bothal—a name which I believe may be safely attributed to the 
Anglo-Saxon designation for a dwelling-place, as distinguished 
from the natural wildness still around—is the foundation charter 
granted to the ancient abbey of Benedictine monks at Tyne¬ 
mouth, by Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland, early in 
the reign of William Rufus; and from that time to the 12th of 
Henry the Second, when Bothal is mentioned as the barony of 
Richard Bertram, its name is not found in anv historical records 
with which I am acquainted.—The family of Richard Bertram 
was anciently one of the greatest families of Northumberland. 
The Bertrams of one branch were lords of Mitford, those of an¬ 
other were lords of Bothal; and they flourished from the time of 
Henry I. to the reign of Edward III.: many manors, lands, and 
villages, from the green banks of the Wansbeck to those of the 
Coquet, owned their sway; their ancestor William Bertram, who 
Avas lord of Mitford in the reign of Henry I., founded the Priory 
of Brinkburn ; and succeeding Bertrams enriched monasteries 
and built churches that survived the duration of their race. The 
history of their first connection with these territories is never¬ 
theless involved in much obscurity. It is said that a Richard 
Bertram—that is to say, a Richard the Fair—was one of the fol¬ 
lowers of the Conqueror, and that by his marriage with Sybil, 








CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTIIAL. 


243 


the daughter and heiress of John de Mitford (who is apochryphally 
described as lord of Mitford, Meldon, Ponteland, and Felton, in 
the time of Edward the Confessor), those possessions were first 
acquired by the Bertram family. 

It is no part of my present purpose to show the want of histo¬ 
rical foundation for this story: suffice it to say here, that the gift 
of “ tithes of Bothal” to the monastery at Tynemouth by Earl 
Robert de Mowbray,* about twenty years after the Norman 
Conquest, may be taken to show that he was lord of Bothal; and 
there is reason to believe that when his great possessions were 
seized by William Rufus as forfeit to the Crown, Bothal was 
conferred by the king on Guy de Balliol, (ancestor of the 
Bertram family,) together with Barnard Castle, and other large 
possessions northward of the Tees. Another account, however, 
states that the Bertrams acquired Bothal by marriage; and this 
statement appears to rest on what is called an “ old pedigree ” of 
the barons of Bothal,f from which it appears that the lord of 
Bothal at the Conquest was Reynold Gisulph, whose possessions 
were inherited by the only daughter and heiress of his son Simon 
Gisulph, and that by her marriage with Robert Bertram, brother 
of Roger the lord of Mitford, Bothal came to the Bertram 

I shall not attempt to elucidate the connection between the 
Bertrams of Mitford and the Bertrams of Bothal, nor endeavour 
to ascertain the precise time at which a Bertram first became its 
lord. The name of Bertram seems to have been first borne as a 
family surname by William the Fair, who was son of Guy de 
Balliol; and it was he who founded Brinkburn Priory, in the 
reign of Henry I., and who may be regarded as the head of his 
distinguished race. 

The historian of Northumberland has said that tradition dimly 
irradiates the barony of Bothal for the first century after the 
Conquest; and it is not seen in the steady light of history until 
the time of Henry II., in the twelfth year of whose reign 
Richard Bertram, as already stated, occurs as lord of Bothal, 
which he held in capite by the service of three knights' fees. 

* Hist, of Tynem. vol. i. p. 40, and charter of Henry I. 

y Printed in Hodgson’s History of Northumberland, “ Bothal.” 

i> 9 



244 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


This Richard Bertram confirmed to the monks of Tynemouth 
the sheaves of corn from his demesne lands ol Bothal, which, as 
his charter states, the monastery took by the gift of his ancestors, 
and it seems to show that the great tithes of the parish had 
become by some means restored to the church of Bothal, if, 
indeed, they had ever been effectually appropriated to Tynemouth. 

I will now briefly advert to what we know of the history of 
the church of this extensive parish; but if the genealogy of the 
early lords of Bothal is dimly traced in the darkness of ages, still 
more obscure is the origin and first foundation of its church. 

In tracing the history of any of our old ecclesiastical edifices, 
the antiquary feels an especial pleasure if he can identify the site 
as a shrine of more ancient worship. Hodgson, the lamented histo¬ 
rian of Northumberland, seems, accordingly, to have beheld in 
the light of imagination a circle of gray Druids’ stones, sur¬ 
rounded by the lone sequestered woods of Bothal, and the reli¬ 
gious groves and altars of Celtic worship on the plateau after¬ 
wards occupied by the church and the castle. But not only do 
we fail to discover any visible trace or tradition of ancient 
Britons here:—history does not mention even a Christian edifice 
at Bothal until the twelfth century, and probably none existed 
until long after the time when in Northumberland the shadows 
of heathenism had fled from the light of Christianity. 

If Bothal was a place of abode, and a parish church was 
founded here before the year 793, when the Danes landed on the 
Northumbrian coast, and marked their devastating progress by 
the overthrow of churches and the massacre of Christian priests, 
it probably shared the fate of the mother church of Lindisfarne— 
that venerable pile, once the abode of the Apostle of Northum¬ 
bria, and the resting-place of the body of St. Cuthbert. His 
church was sprinkled with the blood of his servants, and with 
tears the monks fled from their hallowed walls to the shelter of 
Northumbrian mountains, while their country was abandoned to 
the fury of the Dane. 

At a later period of the wanderings of the bishop and monks 
who guarded the relics of their saint, they traversed a part of the 
parish of Bothal. This was in the year 1069, when the monks 
began the third flight with the body of St. Cuthbert, and they 




CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTHAL. 240 

% 

passed the ford of Shipwash below Bothal, on their way from 
Durham to Lindisfarne. One hundred and ninety-four years 
before that passage— 

The monks fled forth from Holy Isle, 

carrying the body of the saint. In their wanderings to escape 
the Danes, they visited many places in ancient Northumbria, 
which territory in later times became studded with churches and 
chapels dedicated in honour of St. Cuthbert on the localities 
where his relics had rested. After being fugitives for seven years 
the monks settled in a.d. 883 at Chester-le-Street, where the 
bishop fixed his episcopal see, and where the remains of St. Cuth¬ 
bert rested for 113 years, the victories of Alfred having restored 
peace to the Christians in the North. But in a.d. 995, fear of 
the Danes again drove the bishop and his clergy from their 
home, and taking with them the body of St. Cuthbert, their 
flight this time was southward. At length, 

After bis many wanderings past, 

He chose his lordly seat at last, 

Where His cathedral huge and vast 
Looks down upon the Wear; 

and to Durham the see was removed in 995. But in the year 
1069, as already mentioned, when William the Conqueror ad¬ 
vanced into the North to subdue the men of Northumbria and 
compel their allegiance to himself, the bishop and his clergy 
sought refuge in Lindisfarne. On the first night, the body of 
St. Cuthbert rested at Jarrow; on the second at Bedlington; 
and on the following day the fugitives crossed the Wansbeck 
at Shipwash, and, as it is said, rested at a spot in the chapelry of 
Hebburn, part of the rectory of Bothal. The present great 
North road runs for a few miles through the chapelry of Heb¬ 
burn ; and tradition indicates a spot about six miles to the north 
of Morpeth, near Causey Park, as the place where the monks and 
their unquiet burthen rested. The name of “ Causey ” Park is 
obviously derived from the ancient paved way which led along 
its eastern boundary on the line of the North road; and the 
chapel of St. Cuthbert u super le Causey,” mentioned by that 


246 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


designation in the 11th Henry VL, was probably a memorial of 
this event. 

The Church of Bothal is dedicated under invocation of St. 
Andrew. He was the favourite saint, as it would seem, of the 
illustrious Wilfrid, in whose footsteps so many edifices of religion 
rose, and it is worthy of remark that some of the most ancient 
churches of Saxon foundation in Northumberland are in the 
dedication of St. Andrew. But of course this circumstance alone 
would not warrant a claim of such high Christian antiquity for 
the Church of Bothal. We may, however, well believe that a 
church had been founded here before the coming of the Nor¬ 
mans, the tithes of the parish having been given, as already men¬ 
tioned, to Tynemouth by the great Norman Earl of Northumber¬ 
land soon after the Conquest. When Athelstan in the preceding 
century had broken the power of the northern Danes, and restored 
Christianity and the Saxon sway, the Pagans began to receive 
the knowledge of the truth, which v/as imposed as a condition of 
peace by the Saxon lawgivers. Country churches began to 
increase under the care of that pious sovereign and his counsellors, 
and the payment of tithes was enjoined by his laws. A thane’s 
rank might be attained by a Saxon freeman who possessed 500 
acres of land, and who was entitled to a place in the Council of 
the Wise, if he had a church with a bell-tower on his estate; and 
this law aided the progress of parish Churches under the Saxon 
kings. The ancient forests still covered a great part of the land, 
and the population dwelt in scattered hamlets; but there were 
villages in many of the most remote and woody districts, where 
a church had been built and a priest resided. We have a remark¬ 
able instance of this in Northamptonshire, for, thinly as it was 
inhabited in the Anglo-Saxon times, and considerable as is the 
proportion of the county then as now covered by the forest, there 
were existing at the Conquest more than sixty village churches. 
However, there is good reason to believe that in the time of Earl 
Robert de Mowbray the parish church which we suppose to have 
existed at Bothal was in a state of ruin, and was deserted by 
both priest and people. It is said that the church which stood at 
Shipwash lower down the river existed before any church was 
built at Bothal, and was the mother church of the latter parish; 


CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTHAL. 


247 


but if this early edifice at Shipwash was dedicated, as it is said 
to have been, in honour of the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord at 
Jerusalem, it was probably built at some time after the first cru¬ 
sade, and not until late in the twelfth century. Indeed, when we 
remember this dedication, and that the Templars had a preceptory 
at Chibburn, we are tempted to conjecture that this forgotten 
Church of Shipwash had some connection with that illustrious 
order of military monks. 

Shipwash is not mentioned in the ancient record called the 
Taxation of Pope Nicholas, made in 1291, when “ Rectoria de 
Bothal ” occurs. Shipwash was, nevertheless, a separate rectory, 
and so continued down to 1615.* 

The pious care of the Bertram family, however, raised the 
Church of the parish of Bothal on the site of the present edifice, 
in or soon after the reign of Henry I., but their old church was 
probably rebuilt, wholly or in part, early in the thirteenth cen¬ 
tury, to which period the existing chancel (which is of First 
Pointed work) belongs. The nave and aisles were replaced at a 
later period by those now standing. 

But I was speaking of the foundation of the Church of Bothal 
rather than the architectural features of the existing edifice, and 
must revert to the descent of the barony and the succession of 
its lords. 

The Richard Bertram who flourished in the reigns of Henry 
II. and Richard Coeur de Lion, was succeeded by Robert Ber¬ 
tram, who was a donor to New Minster, and occurs early in the 
reign of John as holding Bothal in capite by the service of three 
knights’ fees, the manor having been created a barony by King 
Richard I. At his death in 1103, Richard, his eldest son, was 
in minority; but he had not long enjoyed his inheritance, when, 
in the 17th of King John’s reign, it was taken from him by 
reason of his adherence, together with Roger Bertram of Mit- 
ford, to the rebellious barons. The king had shortly before 
taken vengeance on the town of Morpeth, and destroyed the 
Castle of the De Merlays, and probably the Castles of Mitford and 
Bothal now shared a similar fate. Roger, a younger son of Ri. 

* The list of incumbents of Shipwash may be seen in Hodgson s History. 
The earliest named in it occurs in 1315. 


248 


LECTURES AMD ESSAYS. 


chard Bertram, succeeded, and in 23rd Hen. III. paying 501. 
for his relief and doing homage, his lands of inheritance were 
restored to him. In the 35th of that reign he obtained the 
privilege of free warren in all the lands of his lordship of Bothal. 
He was employed on a special service against the Scots in 42 
Hen. III., and in the 46th year of the same reign he died, leaving 
Robert his son and heir then nineteen years of age. In the 
26th Edw. I. on the death of this Robert Bertram, his grandson 
also named Robert, was thirteen years of age. tie seems to have 
had a. short tenure of his dominions, for he died in the 8th Edw. 
II. leaving Robert his son and heir, twelve years of age, who 
obtained livery of his lands in 2nd Edw. III., and married 
Margaret, one of the daughters and coheiresses of Constance who 
was wife of William de Felton. This Robert is connected with 
an important era in the history of the Castle of Bothal, inas¬ 
much as he, in the 17th Edw. III. obtained license to make a 
castle of his manor-house of Bothal. He seems to have been a 
man of great energy and martial spirit. He was Governor of 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Sheriff of Northumberland in 17th 
Edw. III., and at the battle of Durham he captured William 
Douglas, and aided in defeating the Scots. In this memorable 
engagement, Malcolm Fleming, Earl of Wigton, was taken pri¬ 
soner; and as he could not be sent to London with the rest of 
the prisoners by reason of infirmity, he was committed to the 
custody of the lord of Bothal, but was allowed by Robert Ber¬ 
tram to escape from Bothal Castle into Scotland* without ransom, 
to the great displeasure of the king. Robert Bertram was, how¬ 
ever, restored to the royal favour in consideration of his services, 
and died in the enjoyment of power and honours in 1363. With 
him ended the male line of the Bertrams lords of Bothal, and he 
was succeeded in his barony and possessions by Helen his only child, 
by whose marriage to Robert de Ogle these two ancient houses 
were united, and Bothal came to the old Northumbrian family of 
Ogle. 

Of the plan and appearance of the castle which Robert Bertram 
obtained the royal authority to build we have not any trace. 

* Rot. Claus. 21st Edw. III. pars i. m. 27. Lanercost Chron. p. 351. 



CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTIIAL. 


249 


Hodgson regarded tlie noble gate tower of Botlial Castle, which 
still stands uninjured by the flight of five centuries, as the 
work of that martial chieftain. The shield of arms borne by 
King Edward III. is sculptured on the north face of this great 
tower above the entrance gate-way, and this heraldic monument 
has been referred to as a proof that the castle was built by royal 
authority; but we know that in point of fact it was common for 
lords of baronies to obtain license from the Crown in that reign 
to castellate their mansions. The escutcheons carved upon 
the tower are fourteen in number, and are arranged under the 
parapet on the north side and on the south (the inner) side of 
this massive structure. Amongst them we find the bearing of 
the Bertram family, and of their ancestors the Balliols; the arms 
of the Greystokes, lords of Morpeth, of Percy, of Conyers, of 
Delaval, of Carnaby, of D’Arcy, of Ogle, and of Felton, with 
all of which families the Bertrams were allied by marriage. 

This great gate-tower is all that remains of the habitable 
portion of the fortress, and it presents a fine specimen of castel¬ 
lated architecture of the reign of Edward III. Unhappily, some 
tasteless additions have recently been made, which are sadly out 
of keeping with its venerable aspect. Only portions and 
fragments remain of the other walls and defences of the castle. 
A survey made in 1576 mentions, besides the keep, “ the Ogle 
Tower,” and “ the Blanche Tower; ” and Buck’s View, taken in 
1728, shows two towers and other buildings of Bothal Castle not 
now remaining. 

But, to return to the descent of the barony. The Lady Helen, 
the heiress of Robert, lord of Bothal, survived her first husband 
Robert Ogle,* and lived to marry three other husbands, the last 
of whom was David Holgrave, with whom, in 1396, she founded 
a chantrv in the church of Bothal, and endowed it with twelve 
tofts and two hundred acres of land. The two recumbent figures 
on a sumptuous altar-tomb sculptured in alabaster, at the east 
end of the south aisle, probably commemorate the heiress of 
Bothal and her knightly husband Sir Robert Ogle. 

A remarkable but lowly sepulchral monument in the abbey 

* Sir Robert Ogle was high bailiff of Tynedale, as appears by his patent 
2 Edw. III. He built Ogle Castle, and was at the battle of Neville’s Cross. 


2o0 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


church of Hexham (a brass inlaid on a black marble slab midway 
in the south aisle of the choir) commemorates their son in 
the following inscription:— 

ibtc jaret Motjertus ©gle fill' Alette Bertram filte Mobertt Bertram mtlttis, 
(tut obitt- in btgtlta ©mtttum Sanctorum, &o. IDom. ffcl. ©<£&(£. IFF 0 . 

Cuius anhne proptetetur Heus. amen. 

Under Sir Kobert de Ogle’s limitation of the castle and manor 
of Bothal in tail, John Ogle, who took the name of Bertram, 
succeeded. He occurs in 11 Hen. 1Y. as a demandant of the 
estates against Robert de Ogle, by whom he had been dispossessed. 

It was after the acquisition of the barony of Bothal by the 
Ogle family that the little edifice known as the New Chapel of 
Our Lady, which stands on the north bank of the Wansbeck 
higher up the river, was built. It has been conjectured that a 
hermitage existed here under the protection of the ancient lords 
of Bothal, and a more secluded spot cannot be found in all the 
river dell; but I am not aware that there is any historical trace 
of the hermitage to which the chapel is supposed to have been 
attached. There is a reputed holy well close by the ivy-covered 
ruins of the building, and this may have led to the dedication of 
an oratory or chapel for pilgrims in this sylvan solitude. A key¬ 
stone, sculptured with the bearing of Ogle and Kirkby, was 
taken from the ruins to Bothal Castle for preservation, and this 
seems to be the only remaining evidence of the connection of the 
chapel with the lords of Bothal, Of its walls only two or three 
courses of masonry remain above the ground—for 

-a foe 

Hath laid our Lady’s chapel low. 

Wallis, in his History of Northumberland, refers to “ a sacred 
fountain called St. Margaret’s well,” situate under a bank of oaks 
and other trees, and this may be the well adjacent to the ruined 
chapel. 

On the failure of issue male of John Ogle, the Bothal estates 
passed to another branch, the descendants, namely, of Sir Robert 
Ogle and Maud, daughter of Robert Grey. In the contests 
between the royal houses of York and Lancaster, Sir Robert 0<de. 

' O' 

being a zealous partizan of the White Rose, was created Lord 0<de, 

c * 



CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTIIAL. 251 

but this line ended in Cuthbert, seventh and last Lord Ogle. 
Catherine, one of the two daughters and coheiresses of this Lord 
Ogle, married Sir Charles Cavendish of Welbeck Abbey, and 
was created Baroness Ogle. Their son and heir was Sir William 
Cavendish (better known as the loyal Duke of Newcastle) ; and 
his possessions were inherited by the Lady Henrietta Cavendish 
Holies, who married Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, the illus- 
trous founder of the Harleian Library, who died in 1741; by the 
marriage of whose only daughter and heiress to William, second 
Duke of Portland, the estates of Bothal have descended on the 
ducal house that has sprung from the favourite of William of 
Orange. 

It may here be interesting to refer to two documents—the will 
and the inventory of effects of Robert Lord Ogle of Bothal, the 
sixth of that family, who died in 1562, and whose successor was 
Cuthbert, last Lord Ogle. The testator made his will on the 
27th July, 1562. 

He desires that his body may be interred beside his parents in 
the church of Bothal without pomp. He bequeaths to his brother 
Ralph the advowson of Bothal. He bequeaths to his sister Anne 
30/. for a marriage portion. To Sir Robert Ughtred, Kt., he 
gives his best velvet gown, and his cap with “agletts” and a 
broche upon it, and a doublet of “ satten.” To his cousin Henry 
Ughtred he gives his black taffeta gown, a black velvet jerkin, 
furred with black “ lame (lama? or lamb’s wool). To William 
Clark, second son of Thomas Clark, he gives the advowson, at 
the next vacancy, of the parsonage of Shepwashe, next and after 
the death of “ Sir Thomas Ogle, then incumbent of the same. 
He appointed his wife Jane sole executrix, and Sir Robert 
Ughtred, his cousin, Henry Woodrington and Henry Ughtred, 
and Cuthbert Horsley, Esqrs., supervisors of his will; and be¬ 
queathed to each 61. 13s 4 d, for his pains. 

The testator was deputy-warden of the Marches under the 
Marquis of Dorset in 1547, and had summons to Parliament from 
14 August, 1553, to 5 November, 1558. Jane, his wife, was 
daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Mauleverer of Allerton Maule- 
verer, Yorkshire. The charges of his funeral were large: they 
amounted to 181/. 7s. 8 d. The inventory of the testator s effects 


252 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


remains among the wills and inventories in the registry of the 
Archdeaconry of Richmond. It contains many curious parti¬ 
culars, and affords an example of the simple domestic furniture 
which contented an Elizabethan nobleman. 

It is entitled “ The Inventory of the Goods moveable at 
Bothal, which belonged to Robert sixth Lord Ogle of Bothal 
Castle, appraised the 12th August, 1562.” Part of the inventory 
is wanting, but from what remains we find that in “the chamber 
above the parlour ” were five feather beds and bedding-furniture, 
which are valued at 12/. 4s. 4c/., and “ the best bed-covering and 
five other coverings ” are valued at 44s. 6d. There was “ a 
standing bed,” carved, the tester and hangings of green sarcenet, 
white silk, and red velvet. The furniture of an “ inner chamber ” 
of the same apartment is set down at 3/. 6s. 8 d. In the “ great 
chamber” there was a “ trussing-bed,” (that is, a bed which 
could be conveniently packed for removal), and a tester of black 
velvet and red damask laid with lace, and hangings. There was 
a “red and yellow truckle-bed” and a “framed chair”—the 
whole are set down at 6/. The “ chamber at the Greyshead ” is 
mentioned, and the “ chamber over the PortePs Lodge.” In 
“ the Tower Chamber ” was a bedstead and furniture valued at 
13s. 4 d. The kitchen utensils include twelve “ London platten, 
a frying-pan, dripping-pan, brass pots, and an old kettle,” the 
whole valued at 4/. 12s. Amongst the linen were eight pairs of 
linen sheets, valued at 40s., two pairs of line sheets, and other 
linen, valued in all at 11. 2s. 

At that time, as for long before, a nobleman in his country 
castle had few books and no literary correspondence; newspapers 
were unknowm, and there were no cards or other sedentary amuse¬ 
ments. The duties of religion, and of hospitality to his poor 
neighbours, with the care and government of a household which 
numbered no small retinue of rude and unlettered men, divided 
his time with the pursuit of field sports and the pleasures of his 
garden. And apropos of these, we find mention in the survey 
made a few years after the death of Robert sixth Lord Ogle of 
Bothal, of “ the fair gardens and orchards wherein grow all 
kinds of herbs and flowers.” The refining influence of a love 
for the cultivation of flowers has been felt in all ages ; gar- 








CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OE BOTHAL. 253 

dens seem to have rejoiced stern warlike barons of history no 
less than gentle dames; and on the same Rolls which record 
their provisions for war we find our kings taking order for stock¬ 
ing their gardens with llowers and fruit. Their nobles generally 
seem at all times to have followed the royal example in this 
respect. Gardeners in the reign of Elizabeth did not, indeed, 
aim to produce fruits of a quality and size unknown in their 
tropical homes, nor did botanists range the slopes of the snowy 
Himalaya, the Rocky Mountains of the West, or the gigantic 
pine forests of Australia, to bring rarities to our English gardens 
from the (then undiscovered) territories of the southern and western 
worlds. But the survey I have already mentioned seems to show 
that our English orchards were better furnished with fruit-trees 
than is usually imagined, and that the homely kinds of fruit 
which we now cultivate were then usually cultivated in the 
gardens of our northern castles, for the fruits it mentions are— 

“ All kinds of herbs, pine-apples, plums of all kinds, pears, 
damselles, nuts, wardens, cherries of the black and red, walnuts, 
and also licores verie fyne.” 

Of the buildings of the castle we have the following informa¬ 
tion :— 

“ To this manor of Bothoole belongeth a castle, in circum¬ 
ference 490 feet, whereto belongeth one castle, great cham¬ 
ber, parlour, seven bedchambers, one gallery, buttery, pantry, 
larder, kitchen, bakehouse, brewhouse, a stable, a court called 
the outhouse (yethouse), wherein there is a prison ; a porter’s 
lodge and divers fair chambering, a common stable, and a tower 
called Blanche Tower, a garden, a nursery, a chapel, and a 
tower called Ogle’s Tower, and partrie, with many other pretty 
buildings here not specified.” 

This survey (which remains in the possession of the Duke of 
Portland) was made 6 May, 1576, fourteen years after the death 
of Robert sixth Lord Ogle of Bothal, whose will and inventory 
have afforded us some glimpses of the border chieftain himself, 
and of the furniture which was brought for his use on his resi¬ 
dence at Bothal Castle. It is sad to think how soon the days of 
its glory were to pass away for ever, and to contrast the now 
ruinous state of his castle-walls with their former magnitude and 



254 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


strength. If he foresaw that his castle would be left to decay 
after the descent of his inheritance on strangers, we can imagine 
him to have wished that the memory of his family’s dominion 
might, at least, flourish with the garlands that Time would hang 
upon its walls:— 

A 

Since all that is not heaven must hide, 

Liaht be the hand of ruin laid 
Upon the home I love: 

With lulling spell let soft decay 
Steal on, and spare.the giant sway, 

The crash of tower and grove. 

The parish church hardly demands any minute description. 
It is plain, like other Northumbrian churches, and consists of 
chancel, nave, two aisles, a southern porch, and a campanile with 
three bells. The chancel is of good First-Pointed work. The 
nave and aisles are Middle-Pointed. At the same period the 
eastern lancets gave place to the present window of decorated 
tracery, which seems to have been inserted about 1380, but there 
are three lancet lights in the south and two in the north wall. 
The piers are First-Pointed and octagonal, with plain moulded 
capitals, but in the chancel arch there are good flowered capitals. 
The clerestory is of elegant Middle-Pointed work. 

The windows of the aisles seem of the same date as the east 
window. The roof is almost flat. It was added in 1496, when 
the living was sequestered for the repairs of the church—the Civil 
Wars having probably reduce.d the parishioners to poverty. Some 
fragments of stained glass remain. The church is of small dimen¬ 
sions, the chancel being 42 feet long by 15 feet wide, and the 
nave 54 feet long by 35 feet wide. The floor is considerably 
below the level of the churchyard. 

Few parochial churches possess monuments more elaborate than 
the altar-tomb which is supposed to commemorate Sir Robert 
Ogle and his wife the Lady Helen. The other sepulchral memo¬ 
rials are not remarkable; but there is a thirteenth-century monu¬ 
mental slab incised with cross and sword, in the floor of the 
church, near the porch. 

Bothal Church affords—like so many of the churches in North¬ 
umberland—a curious example of the influence of military archi- 


CHURCH, CASTLE, AND BARONY OF BOTHAL. 


255 


tecture and of the disturbed state of the Border lands upon the 
form and fabric of the parish church. The square-headed trefoiled 
arch which is so common in castellated architecture, hut is so 
seldom used in churches elsewhere, prevails in those of Northum¬ 
berland, and a campanile instead of a tower is generally found 
(as it is here) where the castle is adjacent, the object having 
apparently been to prevent its occupation by the Scots; but where 
there is no adjacent castle the church tower has, in many instances, 
much of the character of a tower of refuge and defence. 

On the parochial visitation of Archdeacon Singleton to Bothal 
in 1826, some memoranda were made which are rather curious. 
The worthy dignitary says—“I found everything connected with 
the benefice prosperous, so that I had few orders to give; but I 
begged them to restore the old heraldic blazonry on the timber 
of the roof, and to repair the only six remaining folios of the list 
of Fathers in Dr. Sharpe’s book.” 

This reference is to the books which Archdeacon Sharpe, in 
1737, sets down as “ belonging to the parish.” It is a remark¬ 
able specimen of what was thought suitable for a parochial 
library, for it contains the works of St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, 
St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and St. Augustine, Gregory, 
Nazianzen, Tertullian, and Cardinal Bellarmine. 

But although soundness in theology was thus provided for, the 
campanology of the Bothal parishioners seems to have been very 
defective, for they had “a cracked bell,” and “the little bell” 
wanted “ a new block,” and “ the great bell better fixing. 

The Archdeacon mentions the monument of the Bertrams, 
the monument of Anne Wilson, the Ogle pedigree on the wall, 
the painted glass in the windows, and the carved capital on the 
north side of the entrance to the chancel, as being all of them 
deserving of preservation. He directs that the “oldest register 
(as much of it as can be made out) be transcribed into a parch¬ 
ment-book, which, after having been collated with the original, 
must be attested by the minister and churchwardens to be a true 

co py-” 

At the time of Archdeacon Singleton’s visitation the old 
church at Shipwash was “ entirely gone down.” Its font was 
then in the rector’s farmyard. It is now outside the chancel- 


256 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


door of St. Andrew’s Church at Bothal. Shipwash was a distinct 
benefice until 1615, about which time the act of annexation of 
this ancient rectory to the rectory of Bothal seems to have taken 
place. Bothal is now the parish church for the inhabitants of 
both parishes. The rectors appear to have been appointed to 
Bothal, without mention of Shipwash, for more than two 
centuries. 

The Archdeacon seems to have had an eye for the picturesque 
as well as the parochial, for he speaks of the rectory-house of 
Bothal as “charmingly situated at Shipwash,” and says, “the 
walk from Shipwash to Bothal is very beautiful.” If I were to 
relieve the dryness of antiquarian detail by attempting to describe 
the scenery around the gray ruins of Bothal Castle, I could not 
convey any adequate idea of its beauty. It would be difficult to 
match in any Northumbrian river-valley the lovely scenes of 
wood and water that are presented on these picturesque bends of 
the Wansbeck, and I do not know where we could find a spot 
on which baronial and ecclesiastical monuments and memories 
more happily unite to bestow interest and dignity. An amphi¬ 
theatre of woods, sloping to the river, surrounds and incloses the 
oval plateau on which the ruins of Bothal Castle stand; and if 
now 

No martial myriads muster in its gate, 

we have instead a scene of peace and beauty that seems fitly to 
environ their picturesque decay, for— 

Opening down some woodland deep 

In their own quiet glade should sleep 
The relics dear to thought; 

And wild-flower wreaths from side to side 

Their waving tracery hang, to hide 
What ruthless Time has wrought. 


A DAY IN YORK. 


[The “New Monthly Magazine,” October, 1857.] 

In the August of the present year I visited York, on a bright 
day, when the repose of that usually quiet old city was broken 
by a great meeting—an agricultural, horticultural, and archaeo¬ 
logical invasion. Fat beeves and mysterious clod-compelling 
engines gathered wondering rustics in the streets and aristocratic 
patrons in the show-ground; graceful forms in gay attire moved 
within the ancient shadows of York; and many animated groups 
were scattered on the soft turf of those charming gardens which 
were once the secluded pleasance of the black-robed monks, but 
now surround the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society; 
while in the Museum itself a multitude of curious objects, from 
Saurian fossils to Shakspearian relics, had been gathered in 
honour of the occasion. 

The journey to the old city was made through a country 
marked by many historical associations, and, like York itself, by 
the successive footsteps of the Britons and the Komans, the Saxons 
and the Danes. I left the smoky town of Newcastle as the sun’s 
level rays fell upon its massive Norman keep and well-known 
spire, and saw the distant wood-environed towers of Durham 
stand out grandly against a sky irradiated by rich hues of sunset; 
and next, the plain tall spire of Darlington marked the southern 
limit of St. Cuthbert’s ancient halidom; and then the cultivated 
plains and woods, church towers, and distant hills of Cleveland 
were seen in a mellowed light, for the sunset glories had faded 
into exquisite gradations of pale tint from gold to sapphire, for 
some time before the minster towers of York were visible, rising 
cold and grey against the eastern sky—those minster towers, , 
which, seen from afar over the wide cultivated vale, so fitly mark 
the chief cathedral city of the northern province. And then, 



258 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


pacing round the vast cathedral by moonlight, how solemn and 
impressive it looked when the rising moon lighted up its grey 
shadowy mass; and the dim outline, far above, of soaring roofs 
and towers and lonely pinnacles rose under the starry vault of 
summer night, and the gigantic buttresses and forms of tracened 
stone stood out in the soft radiance, relieved by deepest shadow, 
and the buildings of the cathedral-close stood in their quaint 
dark forms around. At such a time, when the busy inhabitants 
are at length silent, and the streets, hut lately thronged, are 
empty, images of the past come to take the place of actual life, 
and one is tempted to retrospect and contemplation. I thought 
of the days when no Christian minster hallowed this spot; and 
of the long space of time, from the coming of the Sixth Legion 
to Britain in the reign of Hadrian down to the departure of the 
Romans, during which York was the principal station of the 
whole province, and (more than London) the altera JRoma of 
Britain, the residence of Roman emperors on their visits and of 
imperial legates in their absence, and the place where the em¬ 
perors Severus and Constantius Chlorus died. I thought of the 
times when Eboracum—pre-eminent among Roman stations— 
stood here with all its temples, palaces, villas, and baths, the city 
inclosed by a wall with a rampart mound on the inner side and 
a fosse without, and four strong towers at the angles (of which a 
finely preserved specimen remains to this day in the Museum 
Gardens), and four gates, from which ran military roads that con¬ 
nected it with the roads which traversed Britain in every direc¬ 
tion and crossed its lonely wastes and primeval forests, the road 
to the north for some distance out of the city being bordered 
by the tombs and memorials of the dead. And then, after a long 
dark interval, during which the Saxons set up Thor and Woden 
in the shrines consecrated by Helena, came the days when Anglo- 
Saxon bishops reared at York a Christian Church amidst the 
ruins of the Roman town; for there, twelve hundred and thirty 
years ago, Edwin, King of Northumbria—renouncing the super¬ 
stitions of his fathers—received baptism at the hands of Paulinus; 
so that if Canterbury became what it did from the circumstance 
that Ethelbert, King of Kent, was there converted by Augustine 
the brother-missionary of Paulinus, York was the scene of an 


A DAY IN YORK. 


259 


event not less conspicuous in the history of the northern province. 
Wherever the Roman founded a colony he carried there the arts 
and luxuries of Rome, and he has left elaborate pavements and 
other remains to tell of his footsteps and abode under our 
northern skies. In like manner, elaborate churches and episcopal 
schools of learning rose where the early bishops raised the 
standards of Christ; and so eminent had the school of York be¬ 
come in the eighth century, that scholars resorted to it even 
from the empire of Charlemagne, and the illustrious Alcuin sent 
to this his native city for classical manuscripts that could not be 
found in France. And just as, in the days of the Romans, ships 
built in the Roman ports of Chichester and Colchester resorted 
to York, so, in Alcuin’s time, it was a great mercantile em¬ 
porium, visited by vessels from foreign ports, and was at all 
events one of the greatest, if not the chief, of Anglo-Saxon 
cities. 

But if a walk by moonlight beneath the towers of the great 
minster which, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suc¬ 
ceeded to the cathedral of the Anglo-Saxon bishops, tempts to 
retrospect, the whole aspect of the old city, even by garish day, 
seems to reflect the times when mediaeval York stood the shocks 
of war, and acquired its renown in the history of England. 
Many of its old buildings have yielded in modern days to “ pro¬ 
gress ” and other enemies within the walls; but still there are few 
of our historic cities that retain features more characteristic of 
bygone times than York. Half the churches, and many of the 
houses with overhanging and ornamented fronts, so characteristic 
of the Tudor and the Stuart days, have disappeared, but York 
still affords some interesting specimens of early domestic archi¬ 
tecture ; and you see gateways under which Plantagenets have 
passed, and portals from which you almost expect them to re-ap- 
pear, and a few tavern signs that look as if they might have been 
familiar to Froissart and Chaucer. There are even some streets 
(Stonegate, for instance) which are so antique in aspect, that the 
imagination loves to repeople them with the moving pageants 
they witnessed in bygone times; but the present aspect of York 
must be very unlike what it was in the days when the pious old 
city rejoiced in more than forty parish churches, as it did when 


260 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Henry V. and his queen were at York, on their “ progress ” after 
her magnificent coronation. The Augustine, Dominican, Gil- 
bertine, Carmelite, Franciscan, and Benedictine orders had then 
their monasteries here, the chief and oldest of them being St. 
Mary’s Abbey, a Norman foundation, of the church of which, as 
rebuilt in the thirteenth century, the beautiful and well-known 
ruins dignify the Museum gardens. There were also sixteen 
hospitals, or charitable foundations, the chief of which was the 
wealthy Hospital of St. Leonard (separated from St. Mary’s only 
by the Roman vallum and tower), and this house claimed 
Athelstan for its founder. Of none of these establishments do 
more than a few walls here and there remain; but many of 
their churches (having been parochial) still exist, and several of 
them present specimens of Norman work—indeed, the tower of 
the old parochial church of St. Mary, Bishophill, is believed to 
have been built before the Norman Conquest, with Roman ma¬ 
terials, and to have seen the days of Edward the Confessor, when 
the missionary monks of Evesham (on their tour of visitation to 
the ancient seats of religion in the Northumbrian province) came 
to York, which was even then the first city of northern England, 
leading one poor mule, which carried their books and vestments 
—humble pioneers of a long line of magnificent and wealthy 
churchmen. Mr. Davies, in an excellent communication to the 
Yorkshire Philosophical Society, has assisted us to form a pleasing 
imaginary survey of the picturesque assemblage of architectural 
objects of beauty and grandeur which must have been beheld in 
the days of the Plantagenets, when church towers and stately 
monastic buildings, amid their luxurious gardens, met the eye in 
every direction, the great minster itself towering above them all. 
In speaking of the use of Roman materials in existing structures, 
I should have mentioned that for the unique sculptured arch 
which was removed from the ruined Dominican Church of St. 
Nicholas and is now attached to the Church of St. Margaret 
(a poor and comparatively modern building), an age of sixteen 
centuries has been claimed, and a pre-eminence in beauty over 
all the specimens of British-Roman art that have come down to 
our time: it is supposed to have been originally part of the 
Roman Temple of the Sun. And, according to tradition, upon 




A DAY IN YORK. 


261 


the site of St. Helen’s Church, Yorkshire maidens celebrated the 

rites of Italy, for there the Roman Temple of Diana is said to 
have stood. 

I mention these churches of York only by way of indicating 
the antiquity of its features; many other ecclesiastical structures 
in the city are very interesting; and as to the minster itself, a de¬ 
scription of that glorious pile alone would of course fill a volume. 
Of ancient military architecture many examples remain besides 
the Roman multangular tower already mentioned, and the famous 
Edwardian walls. There are Micklegate-bar and Monkgate-bar, 
fine specimens of architecture of the age of Edward III., and the 
pictuiesque old circular fortress which rises on the mound that 
was the keep of the Norman castle of York, and has acquired the 
name of Clifford’s Tower. 

Of the domestic architecture of our sturdy forefathers there are 
still a few specimens, especially the old houses which were for¬ 
merly the town “ inns ” (or mansions) of noble Yorkshire families, 
and which are lighted up in their fading dignity by some rays of 
history, from their having been associated with the great name 
of Percy, or Howard, or Clifford, or some other family of 
renown. And there is, besides, the old manor-house in which 
parliaments, and the meetings of the sanguinary u Council of the 
North,” under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, were held, and in 
which King Charles the Martyr resided; and the Hospitium, or 
guest-house of St. Mary’s Abbey, in which the Yorkshire 
Philosophical Society have appropriately lodged the Roman 
statues, altars, and other antiquities found in the vicinity. The 
pavement discovered between the railway station and Micklegate, 
on the spot where a Roman villa stood, and the pavements from 
Collingham and Tadcaster, have also been recently laid down 
here; their coloured tesserae are of bold design, but the style 
and workmanship are rude compared with those of the pave¬ 
ments extant in Italy. The fine and spacious Guild-hall, too, 
though it does not date from the time of the Plantagenets, 
reminds a visitor of that scene in the municipal history of 1 ork, 
when Richard II., taking off his own sword, presented it to the 
then mayor, to be borne before him and his successors, to whom 
the sovereign thenceforth decreed the dignity of Lord Mayor. 
Most of the English monarchs have at some time resided in York, 


262 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


and formerly they took up their abode in the monastery of the 
Friars Minors, or some other extensive and princely monastic 
house. The celebration at York of the festivities on the marriage 
of the Scotish king with Margaret, daughter of Henry III.; the 
reception of another princess—Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. 
—on her bridal journey to Scotland ; and the visit of that 
monarch to York in the first year of his reign, when a pair of 
organs and a musician were hired, at the expense of twelvepence, 
to grace the pageant exhibited on the king’s entry at Micklegate- 
bar, are amongst its many regal memories. 

But I am not writing a guide-book, nor attempting to indicate 
even the most remarkable of the antiquities of York. If it were 
within the scope of this article, I might pass from the silent 
stones of the old metropolitan city to the living wonders of agri¬ 
culture that brought such a confluence of visitors on this occasion, 
and might describe some of the animals collected on the York¬ 
shire Agricultural Society’s show-ground: the prize Herefords ; 
the leviathan short-horns, placid and ponderous; the cylindrical 
pigs, and woolly South-downs; the fine symmetrical horses, 
worthy the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire; the woolly 
Cotteswold and Leicester sheep; and the various agricultural 
productions of the great grazing district of the West Riding. 

In the umbrageous gardens of the Museum the vigilant com¬ 
mittee had brought together more intellectual food, and many 
relics of what Lord Derby might call a pre-scientific age—medals 
of a pre-historic world. There were organic fossils from the 
protozoic limestones of Wenlock and Dudley on the one hand, 
and from the tertiary beds of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight 
upon the other; there were beautiful specimens of that extra¬ 
ordinary zoophyte, the Lily Encrinite, from the mountain lime¬ 
stone near Richmond, the stem of one of which, composed of thin 
cylindrical joints or rings, tapers to the root; there were sponges 
from the Flamborough chalk, and a magnificent series of agates 
from Scarborough. And viewing these relics, the thoughts 
reverted to pre-Adamite days, and looking over the now culti¬ 
vated vale of York, bordered by the chalk-wolds, and stretching 
to the Cleveland hills, I thought of the upraising of those older 
heights, of the excavation of Yorkshire’s romantic dales, and the 
clothing of its once submarine lands with verdure; of the 




A DAY IN YORK. 


263 


elephants and other gigantic carnivora, whose remains are 
inclosed in the caves they inhabited by a drift deposit of the 
boulder-clay period—animals which ranged the forests of York¬ 
shire long before the Romans established a colony here—long, 
indeed, before even the aboriginal Britons inhabited the country. 
In a distant geological age, the sea as yet covered all but the 
western area of Yorkshire; in other words, it was only in the 
mountainous district of the county that any land had risen. 
Upon the submarine bed, which then stretched eastward from the 
foot of the Penine hills, the lias, with all its saurians and ammon¬ 
ites, was in that age beginning to be deposited. The London 
basin is supposed to have been then a great estuary; and isolated 
heights (like the present Isle of Sheppey at the mouth of the 
Thames) seem to have been spice islands, inhabited by animals 
and plants now found only in the tropics. A petrified ichthyo¬ 
saurus— a combination of fish and alligator, a monster which had 
the body of a whale, the head of a saurian reptile, and the paddle 
of a fish—was shown from the lias of Whitby—an impressive 
relic of that pre-Adamite world in which a lizard larger than 
the elephant ranged the woods and plains of Kent, and a dragon 
as strange as romancer ever feigned flew in the air. 

But it was pleasant to turn from these formidable petrifactions 
of geological antiquity to the fair forms that were moving in the 
warm sunshine on the fragrant lawn, or inspecting the human 
and historical antiquities displayed in the Museum, which em¬ 
braced all kinds of objects. There were necklaces that had adorned 
English beauties in the Stuart reigns; signets that were used 
by tawny potentates of India; rude stone weapons of ancient 
Britons, and elaborate ornaments of Chinese ladies ; manuscripts 
brought from the chapter library (which is kept, by the way, in 
the exquisite chapel of St. Stephen, the only remaining structure 
of the archbishop’s palace); and the inkstand presented by Garrick 
to Kemble, and carved from the mulberry-tree which Shakspeare 
planted. And so, rejoicing that the days of' ichthyosauri, 
Brigantes, Romans, and medkeval conquerors had passed away, 
but wishing that some of the glow and fervour of the monastic 
times could again fill the vast cathedral, I bade farewell to York. 


A BORDER CHIEFTAIN’S TOWER. 


[“New Monthly Magazine,” November, 1856.] 

Tourists in search of the picturesque no longer think only of 
the Rhine and of the castles that crumble on its vine-clad hills; 
they have learned that beauty and grandeur may be found in the 
natural scenery of our native land, and that we can find places of 
great historic interest within a day’s journey from London. The 
number of people who annually migrate to the heather hills, the 
gleaming lakes and mountain heights of Cumberland, show that 
the attractions of that part of England are well appreciated; and 
persons who seek picturesque scenery and historic memories will 
find few places so well worthy of a visit as Naworth Castle—the 
most remarkable Border stronghold in that county. 

Near the line of the ancient Roman wall (which, starting from 
near the mouth of the Tyne and ending on the Solway, traversed 
that part of the island almost from sea to sea), that Border fortress 
stands secluded amongst some of the fairest scenery of rocky 
Cumberland, yet easily accessible by road or railway from 
Carlisle. It is a characteristic monument of the olden time, and is, 
moreover, associated with the memory of one of the most remark¬ 
able worthies of English history, for Naworth Castle was once 
the stronghold of Lord William Howard, “the Civiliser of the 
English Borders,” the “Belted Will” whose name has been 
made a household word by Scott. It is now the property of his 
lineal descendant the Earl of Carlisle, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 
who inherits with the great possessions of his distinguished 
ancestor his amiable qualities and his literary tastes. 

The aspect of the castle and everything about it is so antique, 
that at Naworth we still seem to be in the seventeenth century, 
and things and people that have passed into history seem to have 
here a local habitation. Naworth Castle was extensively injured 



A BORDER CHIEFTAIN’S TOWER. 


265 


(in fact, in some parts nearly destroyed) by fire in 1844 , but its 
noble owner lias so well preserved its original character in bis 
restorations. 


That Naworth stands, still rugged as of old, 

Arm’d like a knight without, austere and bold ; 

But all within bespeaks the better day, 

And the bland influence of a Howard’s sway. 

Accordingly, this picturesque old stronghold even now looks 
as if it had been forgotten amid the changes that have transformed 
other buildings, and as if one might expect to find its mail-clad 
warders spell-bound in its court-yard or gallery, and ready, at 
the sound of the bugle-horn, to pace the keep again, or issue with 
their chieftain in armed array. 

And an air of antiquity seems to pervade everything around it. 
The aspect of the castle is quite in keeping with its situation. Its 
“ grey cliffs of lonely stone ” rise on the edge of a deep ravine, 
ever filled with the low wild music of the streamlet that gushes 
over its rocky bed below. The trees in the park and chase are 
wide-spreading and umbrageous, if not old and stately. You 
stand upon the footsteps of the Romans, whose celebrated wall 
and military road remain adjacent, and whose paved causeway 
traverses a neighbouring waste, and you are near the ruined 
dwellings of barons and of monks. On the green meadows in 
the distance is the old abbey church of Lanercost; and the lonely 
glens and thickets look as if they were still the haunt of the wild 
boar and the red deer, as in the days of Norman rule. 

The interior of the castle preserved all its antique features 
before the lamentable fire scattered the ancient furniture of the 
warden’s apartments (which were in that portion of the building 
still called “ Lord William’s Tower”), and destroyed the charac¬ 
teristic old hall and chapel. The warden’s chambers were reached 
by a narrow winding stair, and guarded by doors strengthened 
with iron. They consist of his library (for he was a scholar as 
well as a soldier, and could employ the pen as effectively as the 
sword), of his oratory, and his bed chamber; and these rooms, with 
their tapestried walls, the very furniture and weapons he used, 
the books he read, and the altar at which he knelt, were pre- 


266 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


served so entirely in their original state, that (as Sir Walter 
Scott remarked) they carried you back to the hour when the 
warden in person might be heard ascending his turret-stair, and 
almost led you to expect his arrival. 

Not, however, that the castle—or rather, the oldest of those 
portions which escaped the fire—can boast of greater age than 
the middle of the fourteenth century. Lord William Howard, 
who lived in the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, died 
in 1640, and the castle was built by Ralph de Dacre about three 
centuries before. Lord William’s repairs and alterations were 
very extensive, and the architecture of the chief part of the 
quadrangle, or inner court of the castle, is not older than his 
time, or, to speak more correctly, dates from the years between 
1605 and 1620, and it is in the style of his period that the work 
has been restored since the fire. 

From the time of the Norman kings, Naworth and all the 
neighbouring territory belonged to the lords of Gilsland—a 
martial race of barons and crusaders—of the ancient historic 
families of De Vaux, and De Multon and Dacre; but no towers 
were reared amongst these rocky dells until the year 1335, when 
the Ralph de Dacre already mentioned, the inheritor of their 
great possessions, obtained the king’s licence to fortify and castel- 
late his mansion there. He built his castle in quadrangular form, 
inclosing a large court-yard marked by all the stern yet pictur¬ 
esque features of the Edwardian fortress; and the walls being 
built on the edge of steep declivities on all sides but the south 
side, he there raised massive battlemented towers, so that the 
whole building seemed to bear the impress of the rude chivalry 
of the Border five centuries ago. And thus it was that in those 
uncomfortable days, 

When English lords and Scotish chiefs were foes, 

Stern on the angry confines Naworth rose; 

In dark woods islanded its towers looked forth, 

And frowned defiance on the growling North. 

\ 4 

The inhabitants of the Northern “ Marches ” (as they were 
called) were in those times engaged in almost continual warfare 
against the Scots and the Moss Troopers; the country was 


« 




A BORDER CHIEFTAIN’S TOWER. 


267 


uncivilised, and life and property were insecure. But we are 
not going to trace the history of Naworth Castle through those 
“ dark ages.” After having been possessed by the martial Dacres 
for two hundred and sixty years, it came with the barony of 
Gilsland to Lord William Howard, by his marriage to Lady 
Elizabeth Dacre, who inherited these possessions in 1569 ; and 
here it is perhaps worthy of remark that the Naworth property 
seems to have been fated to pass by an heiress—for, by the 
heiress of the Norman lords the estates were carried—in the reign 
of Henry III.—to the family of De Multon, and by the heiress 
of Thomas de Multon to the family of Dacre. 

“Belted Will”—the last and the most picturesque of the 
Border lords, and the most famous of all the lords of Naworth— 
was the third son of that popular Duke of Norfolk who was 
beheaded by “ good Queen Bess ” for his endeavours on behalf of 
her royal captive, Mary Queen of Scots, whom he wished to 
marry, being then a widower for the third time. Lord William’s 
mother (a second wife) was Margaret, daughter and sole heiress 
of Thomas Lord Audley of Walden, Lord Chancellor of England. 
Llis grandfather was the accomplished and ill-fated Surrey. He 
was born on the 19th of December, 1563, within a few weeks 
from which time his mother died; and in 1566 the duke, his 
father, married the widow of Thomas Lord Dacre of Gilsland and 
Grey stoke, whose three daughters and co-heiresses—one of whom 
was the Elizabeth Dacre before mentioned—came in ward to the 
duke, and were prudently destined by him for his three sons. 
Lord William and his bride were born in the same year, were 
brought up together, and married at the early age of fourteen; 
and after a union of more than sixty years, he died in little more 
- than twelve months from her death. The tyranny and malice of 
Queen Elizabeth, which continued him under forfeiture after the 
attainder of the duke, and a costly litigation for recovery of his 
wife’s magnificent inheritance, sadly embittered his early life; but 
adversity in his case served to develope those qualities of eneigy 
and courage, of prudence and perseverance, which afterwards 
distinguished his character. The accession of James opened 
fairer prospects to the house of Howard, which had suffeied so 
deeply for the attachment of the Duke of Norfolk to the ill-fated 


268 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


mother of that monarch, and for the traditional fidelity of his 
family to the Roman Catholic faith. The king made Lord 
William his lieutenant and a warden of the Marches; and he was 
no sooner reinstated in his property than he began the repair of 
the old stronghold at Naworth, which during the years of perse¬ 
cution had fallen into decay. 

He seems to have been about forty years of age when he settled 
on the patrimony of his wife at Naworth, and the turbulent 
borderers soon felt the rule and presence of a great man. While 
strengthening his castle, recovering his alienated rights by law, 
and prudently managing the great inheritances in Cumberland, 
Northumberland, and Yorkshire, which had centered in his rule, 
he captured and hung felons, and made his power felt by the 
sword. Of the lawless state of the Borders when King James 
came to the throne of England, we can form some idea from the 
mere fact that in, or not long before, those days, Northumbrian 
gentlemen of note employed and supported thieves and outlaws, 
and levied what was called “ Black Mail” on those who sub¬ 
mitted to purchase protection from the marauders, so that the 
Border country was a scene of rapine and desolation. Lord 
William maintained a garrison of a hundred and forty men, and 
made his name a terror to the lawless and disobedient. A dark 
prison-vault at the basement of the principal tower of Naworth 
Castle, upon the walls of which some rings remain, is a grim 
monument of the severity experienced by the prisoners who were 

Doomed in sad durance pining to abide 

The long-delay of hope from Solway’s further side. 

t 

Yet, when Camden (the great antiquary) went to visit the 
formidable chieftain, he was found living a life of learned seclu¬ 
sion in his tower amid a garrison of warders. His private tastes 
and public charge so blended the character of scholar and soldier, 
that it might be said of him (as poets feigned of Sir Philip 
Sidney) that Mars and Mercury fell at variance whose servant he 
should be. Camden speaks of him as “ an attentive and learned 
searcher into venerable antiquity.” He had collected the Roman 
altars of the vicinity, and he copied their inscriptions for Camden. 
He was a lover of books and a collector of manuscripts (the spoils 


A BORDER CHIEFTAIN’S TOWER. 


269 


of tlie monasteries), many of which MSS., once his property, are 
now treasured in the Arundel collections in the Heralds’ College 
and British Museum, formed by the great Earl of Arundel, Lord 
William’s nephew. Books afforded solace in the troubles of his 
early life, and remained dear to him in his prosperity; and the 
same hand that drew up a list of sixty-eight felons taken by him, 
and executed, edited the chronicle of Florence of Worcester— 
one of our old ecclesiastical historians. A large number of his 
hooks remain in his tower at Naworth; many of them are rare 
and early printed works, and some are grim and ponderous old 
volumes. He seems to have gladly exchanged strife of arms for 
the shadows of the tranquil Past, and to have renounced the 
political power and distinction that could he gained only in the 
dangerous precincts of a court. 

The glimpses we obtain of his domestic life are very pleasing. 
When all their children were collected around the noble pair, 
sons with their wives, and daughters with their husbands, the 
family is said to have exceeded fifty in number. His domestic 
establishment was proportioned to his stately hospitalities, 
and he was accustomed to move about with a large body of 
armed retainers. He frequently visited London, and, when 
there, resided sometimes at Arundel House (then standing on 
the south side of the.Strand), and sometimes in St. Martin’s 
Lane. He seems to have travelled with at least eighteen 
attendants and twelve horses; and his expenses on each jour¬ 
ney varied from 1 51 . to 30/. in the money of that time. The 
household book of his receipts and expenditure contains much 
curious information. His income seems to have been equivalent 
to about 10,000/. a-year in the money of our day, but it required 
- all his prudent economy to make even that large sum sufficient 
for his great expenditure. In 1619, while the repairs of Naworth 
Castle were in progress, he was still so straitened that he allowed 
himself for pocket-money only twenty shillings a-month, which 
pittance he had increased in 1627 to the magnificent sum of 36/. 
a-year! He visited the continent occasionally, in pursuit as it 
would seem, of health and of books; and he seems to have 
bought the special manufactures of the towns he passed through. 
He frequently (as appears from the household accounts) made 


270 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


presents to his wife. “A watch for my lady,” in 1G24, cost four 
pounds; “a gown for my lady in summer,” cost six pounds; “a 
black fan with silver handle,” six shillings and eightpence; and 
“a fine felt hat for my lady,” which cost seven shillings, occurs 
more than once in the steward’s accounts. He bought trinkets 
for his daughters, and provisions for his house. “ Six Turkey 
carpets,” bought in 1619, cost six pounds three shillings; and a 
carpet made of “ three yards of crimson velvet, with gold and 
silk fringe,” cost altogether four pounds sixteen shillings. “ Two 
saddle-cloths and horse-trappings for my lord,” cost three pounds 
eighteen shillings; two silver candlesticks, ten pounds seventeen 
shillings ; and a silver hand-bell, thirty-eight shillings. There 
are several payments of five shillings for “ cutting and trimming 
my lord’s beard;” a pair of silk hose for him cost thirty-eight 
shillings; a pair of boots, ten shillings; a silk belt for the sword, 
four shillings; and “ a scarf for my lord to wear in riding,” six 
shillings. 

But Scott has already raised in the mind’s eye a portrait of his 
costume by the well-known description: 

Costly his garb—his Flemish ruff 
Fell o’er his doublet shaped of buff, 

With satin slash’d and lined; 

Tawny his boot and gold his spur, 

His cloak was all of Poland fur, 

His hose with silver twined ; 

His Bilboa-blade—by March-men felt— 

Hung in a broad and studded belt. 

Having given peace to the Border country, and enforced the 
authority of law; having acquired the honourable title of “the 
Civiliser of the Borders; ” and having consolidated a noble inhe¬ 
ritance for his posterity, and seen his children grow to be the 
comfort of his age, he departed this life at Naworth, on the 20th 
of October, 1640, at the age of seventy-seven, leaving memories 
which should never fade, and a name that throws undying interest 
round one of the most picturesque monuments of Old England. 


INCREASE OF THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE. 


[“Durham County Advertiser,” October 26, 1855.] 

The author of the address * on which we propose to make a 
few remarks was for some time curate in the diocese of Durham, 
and is locally known for his zeal and diligence in parochial work, 
and for the earnestness with which his heart is given to the 
service and extension of the Church of England. Deploring the 
apathy of the people massed in great manufacturing towns, or 
scattered in remote country districts, with regard to the Church, 
and their ignorance of episcopal care, Mr. Lee has, in this 
pamphlet, addressed an exhortation to the Churchmen of England, 
with a view to an immediate increase of the episcopate, in accord¬ 
ance with the recommendation of the Commissioners:— 

What untold blessings,” he remarks, “ might be effected 
among our heathen neighbours, if, in every large town, a bishop, 
surrounded by his staff of clergy, were at work amongst them; 
himself daily passing in and out, personally superintending their 
pastoral interests, counselling them in their difficulties, encou¬ 
raging them in their trials, and supplying a centre of unity, by 
means of which clergy, schools, and churches, hitherto disunited 
and acting singly and alone, might be united in one, and made 
to present a compact, active, and energetic front to the mass of 
sin and infidelity by which they are surrounded.” 

A bishop so working with his staff of clergy in every great 
centre of population, would be a hopeful sight for England. It 
is one that was fully realised in this country in the early ages of 
her Church; and our forefathers would have shrunk with horror 
from the impiety of allowing the means of episcopal superin- 

a • 

* An Address to the Churchmen of England on the increase in the 
Episcopate proposed by the Cathedral Commissioners in their Third and 
Final Report. By the Rev. Alfred T. Lee. London : Masters. 



272 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


tendence to be unequal to tbe wants of the people. When first, 
under the Roman missionaries, Christianity was embraced by the 
courts and households of kings, their conversion was followed, as 
the historians of Saxon England tell us, by the establishment of 
a see, which, in those days, seems to have been one great parish. 
But so essential was episcopal government held to be, that at the 
time when St. Augustine was constituted primate by Gregory the 
Great, he was charged to select a prelate for the see of York, who 
was to have under his iurisdiction no less than twelve suffragan 

•J D 

sees. Still, at first a bishopric seems to have been co-extensive 
with a kingdom; but, as Christianity extended, this became an 
insufficient provision; and, towards the close of the seventh cen¬ 
tury, Archbishop Theodore accomplished the division of the 
larger sees, and effected an arrangement similar to that which is 
demanded in the nineteenth, for it involved the division of 
previously-existing dioceses, and the consequent division of 
previously-existing power. How different is the state of things 
we now see in England after the lapse of twelve hundred years! 
While the country has been advancing in enlightenment, in 
wealth, in population, and in power, the number of bishops has re¬ 
mained stationary, and at this day scarcely exceeds the number pro¬ 
vided for England in the first ages after her conversion. Neither 
has the increase of parochial clergy kept pace with the increase 
of population ; indeed, the population in great manufacturing 
towns and mining districts has, notoriously, so completely out¬ 
grown the means of pastoral care, that thousands of the people 
are living in heathen darkness and brutal debasement. Many a 
clergyman finds himself accountable for a population of 10,000, 
and even 20,000 and 30,000 souls—a state of things with which, 
of course, no human energy can cope. In early times, before 
parochial divisions were established, each diocess seems to have 
been (as we have said) one great parish; but, as towns arose and 
population increased, parishes increased also, until at length 
many great centres of population—as York, London, Lincoln, 
Norwich, and other cities—had 40, 50, and even 100 parish 
churches ! But now we have districts to which mining and 
manufacturing enterprise has brought many thousands of people, 
but in which there is not a single church; while in man}^ of our 


INCREASE OF THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE. 


273 


populous towns the parochial system is paralysed by the fearful 
disproportion between the number of clergymen and the dense 
masses of population around them, and by the alienation of the 
parochial tithes. When the requirements of pastoral care and 
education are urged in considering the re-distribution of capitu¬ 
lar revenues, it should be borne in mind not only that the tithes 
of more than 3,000 parishes are held by impropriators, but 
that even bishops and cathedral dignitaries hold (or, until the 
spoliations of the Ecclesiastical Commission, held) appropriate the 
alienated tithes of 1,520 parishes in England and Wales. 

The “ tale of tithes” which is connected with the early career 
of a certain prelate will here occur to the reader as a memorable 
example—we refer, of course, to the tithes of the Bedfordshire 
parish, with which his canonry was endowed, and which, with a 
characteristic indifference to his own interests, and consideration 
as well for his successors as for the spiritual welfare of the parish, 
he sold for (it is said) about 32,000/. We believe it is some 
twenty-five years since he retired from the canonry, but it was 
only recently that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners paid him 
upwards of 3,000/. for his remaining interest in it. When cathe¬ 
dral dignitaries and bishops deal in this way with spiritual reve¬ 
nues, and call on other people to supply the wants occasioned by 
their rapacity, we need not wonder at the difficulty experienced 
in procuring the restoration of tithes to spiritual purposes, or that 
in populous towns, and in those country parishes where populous 
settlements have sprung up, the parochial system cannot be 
brought to bear upon the people. The active energies of a bishop 
(how blessed would be the influence of such a prelate as the 
Bishop of Oxford!) in every great centre of population would 
effectually ameliorate that appalling state of things; but episcopal 
care is out of the question unless the number of bishops be greatly 
increased, for, disproportionate as the number of clergy is to the 
people, the number of parochial benefices is so disproportionate 
to the number of bishops, that if each bishop was to determine 
on personally inspecting all the benefices in his diocese, it could 
only be done in a period of time varying in the different dioceses 
from four to eight years. The ministers of the Church being, 
thus, rendered unable to reach their flocks, dark and neglected 

T 


274 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


populations grow up ignorant of religion and hostile to the 
Church, whose care and guidance they have never known, and 
it is beyond the power of the existing prelates and parochial 
clergy “ to bring again the outcasts and seek the lost. How 
can we wonder that the masses in our towns ot trade should look 
with apathy as well on the existing episcopate as on the proposal 
for its augmentation ? They only see in a bishop (as Sydney 
Smith, we believe, said,) a man clothed in soft raiment, lodged in 
a palace, and endowed with a rich portion of the product of 
other men’s industry:— 

“ By the mass of the people (says Mr. Lee) the bishop is 
looked upon as a state officer, as an exalted dignitary with a large 
income, with little to do but to enjoy himself as best he may, and 
once in three years to confirm in the different parishes of his 
diocess. They have little or no idea of the spiritual blessings of 
which he is the sole channel; they do not esteem him as a suc¬ 
cessor of the apostles, or as that spiritual head of the diocess 
through whom its spiritual life and energy are to be diffused.” 

Indeed, the chief overseers of Christ’s flock are so utterly sepa¬ 
rated from the middle classes and from the poor, that their very 
existence is unknown. Many of them reside far from the 
populous towns of the diocese, spend a considerable part of every 
year in London, and are much occupied by secular business. Their 
visitations are few, formal, and far between, and their presence and 
sympathy are unknown to the people. The remedy for this 
deplorable state of things is to be found, we are told, in the 
endowment of new bishoprics, and the establishment of working 
bishops in the great centres of population. Certainly, if existing 
prelates are so absorbed by the worldly cares of their position and 
the Herculean labours which Mr. Lee assures us they now un¬ 
dergo, that they cannot fulfil their duties to the flock, let new 
sees be founded and more bishops be consecrated; but they must 
not be of the Manchester and Durham,* the Hereford and Canter¬ 
bury type, if their flocks are to derive any blessings from their 
appointment. We have no wish to see any augmentation of the 
Church patronage exercised in Downing Street. It is high time 
that we should know whether the Church of England is a depart- 

* This review appeard while Dr. Maltby was Bishop of Durham. 


INCREASE OF THE ENGLISH EPISCOPATE. 275 

mcnt of the State, amenable to the House of Commons, or a 
branch of the Catholic Church of Christ. The consecration of 
every new bishop would truly be the occasion for joy and thank¬ 
fulness il the Church of England could regain her rightful gua¬ 
rantee for the appointment of men who would prove in deed, as 
well as theory, her chief pastors. We want bishops who will 
faithfully do the work of the Church amidst their clergy, and 
whose attention will be devoted to things eternal, and not to 
making profitable bargains for themselves with Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners; bishops who would be a mediating power be¬ 
tween rich and poor, between the strong and the weak; bishops 
who would diligently preach God’s word, fearlessly assert Church 
principles, and honestly administer godly discipline; bishops who 
would shew themselves diligent to banish and drive away all 
strange and erroneous doctrine, and be examples of good works, 
and who would ever remember that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive. The practice of placing doubtful churchmen in 
high ecclesiastical station has produced deplorable evils. If we 
are to have new bishops, we do not want men who (to quote 
Sydney Smith again,) have gone through the Elysian trans¬ 
itions of prebendary, dean, and prelate, after the long train of 
purple, profit, and power; men about whom there is more of the 
sweet savour of riches than the odour of sanctity. Contempo- 
raneouslv with the endowment of new sees and the nomination 

%j 

of new bishops, we need the restoration to the Church of her 
constitutional guarantees for their fidelity to all the catholic faith 
that the Church of England retained at the Reformation, other¬ 
wise the appointment of new bishops would only increase per¬ 
plexities and doubts. Mr. Lee draws a pleasing picture of a 
working bishop who would supply a centre of unity, and combine 
his spiritual militia in one energetic body. But, as far as faith 
and doctrine are concerned, many existing bishops are anything 
but centres of unity. We have seen one bishop faithfully main¬ 
tain Church principles, and an archbishop, like another Pilate, 
sacrilice them to gratify a popular clamour ; we have catholic 
doctrine maintained in one diocese and discouraged in another; 
we have bishops who allow two sets of opinions to be taught in 
the same diocese; bishops who deprecate synods and individually 

T 2 


276 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


claim authority in controversies of faith; hesitating bishops, who 
remain inactive rather than incur responsibility; tyrannical 
bishops, who will silence a curate but be obsequious to a prime 
minister; bishops who deprecate ritual solemnity, but have no 
censure for latitudinarian practices. We have too long had to 
blush and lament for such prelates: God forbid that hands should 
be laid on any more men like them ! But these are evils resulting 
from the manner in which bishops have been appointed. They 
may ultimately be overcome, and we have much encouragement 
when we look at the men who have been selected for the nine¬ 
teen colonial bishopricks which in the short space of fourteen 
years have been founded by the united efforts of English church¬ 
men. As to the endowment of the proposed sees in English dis¬ 
tricts, whose heathen population is as much a field for authorised 
missionary exertion as any distant part of the globe can be, Mr. Lee 
looks principally to the united munificence of churchmen for the 
means of its accomplishment. But it does appear to us that a 
gradual re-distribution of the episcopal and cathedral revenues 
already existing ought to afford the necessary funds. It is too 
late to recal the colossal fortunes which dignitaries of the dark 
Georgian years accumulated before the Ecclesiastical Commissioners 
seized church property, or the episcopal wealth scattered by that 
commission; but it is not too late to stop the profligate system which 
has wasted 45,000Z.—in we forget how short a period—on what are 
called the “ working and parliamentary expenses” of that sacri¬ 
legious commission, and which is devoting to new churches in 
Bethnal Green or in Cornwall the ancient patrimony of the 
church of Durham. Out of the income of the Archbishopric of 
York alone several new bishoprics might be founded in the 
overgrown towns of Yorkshire, and out of the alienated revenues 
of the see of London at least one see for populous metropolitan 
districts might be endowed. But, whatever decision may be come 
to with regard to new episcopal sees, as a means of church exten¬ 
sion, there can be no doubt that it is the duty of English church¬ 
men to set themselves to the great work of dispelling the spiritual 
darkness around them; that it is a duty to which they are called 
as patriots and as Christians, and that it should be instantly under¬ 
taken as a work for the honour and glory of God. 


REVISION OF THE LITURGY. 


[“Durham County Advertiser,” June, 1855.] 

I hope the appearance of the letter signed Amicus in your 
columns does not indicate that they are to he opened to a con¬ 
troversy touching a revision of the Book of Common Prayer— 
that favourite device of the Puritan party; or that you invite 
churchmen to entertain and discuss the question of revising the 
Liturgy of the Church of England. 

Inasmuch, however, as you have published a letter on this 
subject, in which we are told of people being “ driven from the 
establishment,” and, in particular, of “ two clergymen in the 
diocese of Exeter” who have “ set the example of opening free 
Episcopal Churches ”(!) and inasmuch also as the alleged in¬ 
crease of nonconformity is attributed by your correspondent to 
the retention of what he calls “objectionable portions” of the 
Book of Common Prayer, I must ask you to allow another cor¬ 
respondent to protest against the making of any concessions for 
the conciliation of nonconformists, and to point out some things 
—not in the Book of Common Prayer—which are real causes of 
offence to Churchmen, which are often taken advantage of to 
excuse Dissent, and which have in many ways a deadly influence 
on our Communion. The letter of Amicus affords some in¬ 
formation as to the objects which the would-be improvers of our 
Liturgy have in view. This it does upon the authority of some 
one signing himself “ A Provincial Physician,” who has pub¬ 
lished somewhere his prescription “ for an improvement of the 
Book of Common Prayer,” and it appears that the theological 
M.D. objects in the name of the public— 

1st. To the absolution, “ being ignorant where in the Scrip- 




278 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


tures any special authority is given to ministers to pronounce 
penitent sinners pardoned.’^ 

2nd. To the Apostles’ Creed, “ being sure that it never was a 
creed of any apostle; and, in particular, that the descent of 
Christ into hell is highly improper ” [meaning, I presume, that 
this is an improper form of expressing our belief]. 

Now, of course, no man who honestly accepts the teaching of 
the Church of England, or who has any idea of Church autho¬ 
rity in matters of faith, could possibly allege these tenets, or any 
tenets held by the Universal Church at all times, to be “ objec¬ 
tionable/’ He must, therefore, be a Protestant Dissenter of some 
kind, or a false member of the Church of England; and, alas! 
there are even clergymen who, having solemnly professed their 
assent and consent to everything contained in the Prayer Book, 
can nevertheless now discover Popery in it, and join some 
miserable committee that acts independently of episcopal control 
and acknowledges the supremacy of Exeter Hall, to the scandal 
of the Church and the grief of every candid and honest man. 

Protesting against any “ revision ” of the Book of Common 
Prayer, I ask then, shall we mutilate our Liturgy to accommodate 
it to the views of Dissenters, whether they are separatists already 
out of the Church, or traitors still within it? Shall we remodel 
our Book of Common Prayer to meet “objections” which, 
according to the Provincial Physician, “ are justly entertained by 
the public at large”? 

The public at large!—as if the faith of ages and “ The forms 
bequeathed from elder days ” were things to be adapted to the 
shifting temper of the public. Alas! that the public no longer 
means the community of faithful people! Split up as it is into 
multitudinous divisions, all at variance from the Church and from 
each other, and forming a number of incoherent sects built on the 
foundation of themselves, and each one setting up some favourite 
heresy in opposition to the truths of the Gospel, how worthless 
and abortive, as well as fatal to the Church of England, would be 
any attempt at compromise or reconciliation? Amicus and his 
friend, the “ Provincial Physician,” must be very unobservant if 
they do not know that objections are made to many other pas¬ 
sages in the Book of Common Prayer besides those which the 


REVISION OF THE LITURGY. 


279 


Medical Divine has pointed out, and to many other assertions of 
Catholic faith and doctrine to be found in the Liturgy of the 
Church of England. A Dr. McNeil, for example, absolutely put 
forth his bracketed Prayer Book, and a Mr. John Taylor, who 
is advertised as of Apocalyptic notoriety, has improved on this 
by suggesting, in his edition of the revised Liturgy prepared for 
Convocation in the reign of William and Mary, that people 
should use the revised page in Church while the minister is read¬ 
ing the “objectionable” portions! If our ritual inheritance— 
our charter of title to the name of Catholic—is to be frittered 
away in order to be accommodated to the views of non-conformists 
and pseudo-Churchmen, the would-be improvers of the Liturgy 
must remove from it every tenet distinctive of the faith and 
doctrine of the Universal Church of Christ. 

But it would be mere waste of time to discuss the question— 
What alterations shall he made in our Liturgy ? for it is incon¬ 
ceivable that we can really have to apprehend any authorised 
revision of the Prayer Book to meet the views of Puritan objectors. 
No churchman could recognise any revised Book of Common 
Prayer that the Crown, at the instanced of the Sacred Synod 
of the House of Commons, might attempt to impose on the 
Church of England. Even the most thorough-going “ Lion and 
Unicorn men ” would surely shrink from accepting such a gift 
from the State; and even the House of Commons—the only 
constitutional assembly which seems capable of daring to adapt 
our liturgical offices to the wishes of what is called the Protestant 
Public, or, in other words, to the Puritanism of the age—would 
probably shrink from the consequences that would be incurred. 
Her free deliberative assembly must be restored to the Church of 
England if her sanction is to be asked to “improvements ” in her 
Liturgy; and if a Book of Common Prayer, ignoring any tenets 
of the Catholic faith, should be attempted to be imposed on the 
Church of England, whether with or without ecclesiastical 
authority, the acceptance of it by her ministers would be ipso 
facto destructive of her character as a branch of the Catholic 
Church of Christ. 

I proceed, then, to point out some of the evils which grieve 
and perplex churchmen anxious to remain in the church of their 
baptism; which deprive her daily of the affections and allegiance 


280 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


of the wavering members of her communion; and which feed the 
bitterness and point the hostility of her non-conformist foes. 

1. First and foremost is that abominable system of pew-renting 
—a giant evil and perpetual occasion of non-conformity. If the 
public mind had been half as sensitive about the pew nuisance as 
it occasionally becomes about harmless candlesticks, thousands 
would have been gathered to the fold of Christ who (in the 
language of a “ Provincial Physician ”) have been driven from 
the Establishment. But what are we to expect, at least in this 
our generation, when in the recent restoration of a parochial 
church under the auspices of the Archbishop of Canterbury 
himself, we find cushioned pews for the rich, but hidden, obscure, 
thrust-away free-seats for the poor? 1 am speaking of what was 
done under the auspices of that perverse primate, Dr. Sumner, at 
St. Mary’s, Lambeth—an edifice which was truly said to have 
been long a Lazarus at the palace-gate of Dives. 

2. Then, it is impossible to over-rate the repulsive influence of 
the pulpit in too many of our churches. You have tedious, frigid 
preaching, instead of terse and fervid exhortation; and well-worn 
platitudes, critical discourses, and—what is worse—diluted Cal¬ 
vinism, instead of Christian teaching and exhortations to Chris¬ 
tian conduct. It was once justly remarked that the preachers of 
Truth too often take no more pains to enforce their public in¬ 
structions than if they delivered fictions,—while on the stage the 
speakers bestow their pains to make fictions seem truth. But it 
is not the manner of preaching, only, for which so many of the 
clergy are censurable: they neglect the clear duty of saying the 
office of prayer in their churches daily, while they exalt the 
importance of the weekly sermon. 

3. The mutilation, by too many clergymen, of the Liturgical 
offices is in itself an act of non- conformity, and an encouragement 
to it; and we are, unhappily, but too familiar with a mode of 
performing divine service which is neither real nor dignified. 

4. Then, there is that wearisome modern innovation—the 
practice of uniting services which are intended to be distinct, and 
thereby overtasking the attention of one congregation every 
Sunday forenoon, instead of edifying the several congregations 
who would gladly fill the church at the separated offices. 

o. I hardly dare trust myself to speak of the neglect of church 


REVISION OF THE LITURGY. 


281 


music,—of the wretched and repulsive psalmody common in 
many churches where better things might easily he done, and of 
the neglect of those accessories to devotion which speak to the 
mind through the senses. I need say nothing of the necessity 
for addressing the mind of the uneducated through their eyes. 
The poorest orders (it has been truly said) love a majestic and 
even an elaborate service. The ornaments of their church, the 
storied glass, the enriched walls, the altar exalted and decked 
with sober yet costly furniture, the pealing organ and the chanted 
psalm, in which every one may join,—these are ritual solemnities 
which gladden while they elevate the minds of even the least 
educated worshippers; they rejoice to find themselves equal par¬ 
ticipants with their richer neighbours in paying their all-un¬ 
worthy homage to the Lord of Heaven. But instead of these 
devotions and devotional accessories, we have exclusive pews and 
cold walls, and blank staring windows, and the devotion-con¬ 
founding voices of parish clerks and parish children. What 
wonder is it that we have coldness and silence among the congre¬ 
gation, and an unconcerned, not to say irreverent, demeanour? 

6. Nor is it less painful to review the ecclesiastical history of 
our time,—to see the unhealthy influence of the “popular” 
preacher—the perverse force of party feeling—the want of con¬ 
sentient action and of church discipline—the toleration, by 
bishops, of clergymen who will not practise their duty—and the 
self-willed conduct of the people (chiefly of the trading classes), 
who are left so ignorant of church matters, and have become so 
puritanical, that they will not bear to see that duty done, but 
rush to the kindred arena of the Conventicle to find the excite¬ 
ment which the parochial pulpit does not supply, or to escape the 
edifying restraints of church ceremonial; and they forsake the 
calm and stedfast sunshine of Church doctrine for the rockets 
and blue-lights of the Dissenting pulpit. Can anything be more 
suicidal in the clergy than the fraternisation of low-churchmen 
with the various shades of sectarian Bible-mongers? Is it pos¬ 
sible to think, without trembling, of the extent to which pastoral 
care falls short of spiritual wants—of the traditionary apathy of 
chapters, and the unfruitful wealth of many cathedral bodies ? 
What (it has been truly asked) will our children think of this 
generation, when they see the splendid endowments we held in 


282 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


trust for posterity and for God frittered away by paltry expe¬ 
dients and controlled by Parliament; tithes alienated, Church 
estates sold, and real property transmuted into Consols; the 
Church’s right to elect bishops yielded to a Shaftesbury; annual 
guineas ostentatiously substituted at Exeter Hall for broad acres 
and solemn oblations on the Christian Altar; the fabric of our 
ancient parochial churches endangered, and their prescriptive 
title to maintenance from the land denied ? And this is— 
Progress! 

When we think of these things, can we be surprised at non¬ 
conformity, or at “ the fierce and brutal infidelity ” (to use Lord 
Shaftesbury’s language) which prevails in every part of the 
country? The “Provincial Physician ” says the remedy is to be 
found in revising the Book of Common Prayer. Lord Shaftes¬ 
bury seeks it by an equally insidious measure for the gradual 
abrogation of the Liturgy and encouragement of speculation in 
pew-rents, by legalising preaching-places in every parish in oppo¬ 
sition to the clergy, to the subversion of the parochial system, 
and the great danger of the Liturgy, the Prayer Book, and the 
Church of England itself. And we are coolly told by the Evan¬ 
gelical and Erastian party, that, in order to resist that stedfast 
ancient Church of Rome which has rejected all Lutheran and 
Calvinistic heresies, we must unite with Dissenters and agree 
that the Church of England shall now renounce what she has 
preserved and guarded of the Catholic faith. God forbid it! 


THE NORTHUMBERLAND CABINET OF ROMAN 

FAMILY COINS. 


[“Durham County Advertiser,” Oct. 1856.] 

Our public libraries and tlie libraries of literary institutions, 
as well as the collections of several favoured individuals, have 
lately been enriched by a work entitled “Descriptive Catalogue 
of a Cabinet of Roman Family Coins belonging to His Grace the 
Duke of Northumberland, K.G.; by Rear-Admiral William 
Henry Smyth,” &c., which, although bearing on the title-page 
the words “ printed for private circulation,” is a volume of so 
much importance and value as to render it fitting that its pro¬ 
duction and contents should be publicly noticed. 

His Grace Algernon Duke of Northumberland is well known 
to have been a zealous and inquiring traveller; and of the exer¬ 
cise, during his travels, of his taste for the higher departments of 
archgeology the duke’s splendid collections of Egyptian and other 
antiquities bear witness; while the cabinets of the Numismatic 
and of some Antiquarian Societies have been enriched by His 
Grace's gift of collections of ancient Greek and other coins, 
acquired by himself in his travels on the historic shores of the 
Mediterranean. The duke’s learned and gallant friend Admiral 
, Smyth appears to have suggested that the several cabinets of 
coins and medals in His Grace’s possession should be examined 
and arranged, and this congenial labour the admiral undertook. 
In retaining the Northumberland Cabinet of Coins of the Roman 
Families, the special object which the duke had in view was to 
have a complete work printed on that subject in English, such a 
work having been wanted in our libraries; and the goodly 
quarto above referred to is the result. 

An early admiration for classical antiquity, followed by a long 



284 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


official employment in the Mediterranean, have well qualified 
Admiral Smyth for his scientific work. Scholar and sailor, 
geographer and geologist, antiquary and astronomer, his acquire¬ 
ments are various, and the animation and humour with which he 
writes, pleasantly set off the dryness of numismatic detail, and 
blend amusement with instruction. Accordingly, in the hand¬ 
some volume, for which its possessors are indebted to the libe¬ 
rality and courtesy of the noble duke and the scholarship and 
labour of the gallant admiral, we have—not merely the deside¬ 
rated catalogue of the Roman consular and family coins in His 
Grace’s collection, but—a work over which are scattered the 
sparks of much classical learning. Coins and medals are stores 
gleaned from the debris of Time, which, when polished by the 
true antiquary, become useful to the poet, the geographer, the 
artist, the biographer, the chronologist, and the historian; and 
this is truly a work full of elucidations of history, chronology, 
and geography, as well as of the constitutional divisions and 
usages of the Roman people. 

Having said thus much of the book, it may be interesting to 
some of our readers that we should subjoin a few particulars illus¬ 
trative of the Roman coinage—that coinage which for nearly 
four centuries constituted the only circulating medium in this 
country—in the then distant “ ultimos orbis Britannos,” the 
Britain which, though 


-Once despised, can raise 

As ample sums as Rome in Caesar's days; 

Pour forth as numerous legions on the plain, 

And with more dreadful navies awe the main. 

The Romans commenced their coinage with brass, or rather 
bronze, in the time of king Servius Tullius, nearly 600 years 
before Christ. Silver followed about the year B.c. 267, in the 
485th year of the city, and sixty-two years afterwards the 
Romans minted gold. About a hundred and twenty-eight 
varieties in gold, two thousand four hundred in silver, and 
nearly three hundred in bronze are known. In the Roman 
coinage there is a well-known and extensive silver-series ranging 
through many hundred years, and nearly to the period of 



THE NORTHUMBERLAND ROMAN COINS. 


285 


the fall of the Eastern Empire. This series is subdivided into 
the three classes of the consular, the family, and the imperial 
denarii. The first two of these classes form the staple of the 
present catalogue, those coins being designated “ consular” which 
were struck during the Republic with the authority of the Con¬ 
suls ; and those specimens being included under the denomination 
of “ Family Coins” which are inscribed with the name of any 
Roman family. These were struck for the most part between 
the year B.c. 280 and a.d. 50. Many belong to the time of 
Julius Caesar—before whose days no living Roman was permitted to 
place his effigy upon coins; but the most interesting are nearly of 
the time of Augustus,—of Augustus who became master of the 
world about thirty years before Christ, and whose age was 
esteemed the halcyon day of arts, of letters, and philosophy, 
although the mighty Emperor (as Mons. Perrault has reminded 
us) had neither any glass to his windows nor any linen to wear. 

On all this series of coinage we find, indeed, little chronological 
certainty, but a wondrous variety of names and attributes, both 
human and divine—sacred rites and implements—public monu¬ 
ments and edifices — manners and customs, and allusions to 
honours, triumphs, and other historical events. Thus (for example) 
on a coin of Pompey the younger, a turret-crowned female figure 
who meets a warrior stepping from a Praetorian galley, represents 
Spain welcoming the arrival of Pompey ; silver coins of the 
MDmilian family, probably struck about the year B.C. 90, refer to 
the construction, by Manlius iEmilius Lepidus, of a stone bridge 
over the Tiber, instead of the wooden bridge of Ancus Martius; 
others of the same family indicate the joy of the Romans on the 
capture of the last ruler of Macedon; a Caecilian coin, having on 
the reverse a Macedonian shield within a garland, in honour of 
Metellus, in the centre of which is an elephant’s head, alludes to 
the victory over the Carthaginians in the year B.c. 251; a coin 
of the great Marcellus of the Claudian gens alludes to the conquest 
of Syracuse in the year 212 b.c. ; a coin of Lutalius Cerco alludes 
to the decisive naval victory over Hanno in 241 B.C., which 
resulted in the peace that closed the first Punic war; a denarius 
of Pompey the great was probably struck when, in the year 
B.C. 67, he took the command of the vast armament against the 


286 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


Pirates of the Mediterranean; and other coins rccal persons and 
events commemorated in the orations of Cicero and the poetry of 
Virgil. 

It would be curious if the figures of divinities were, 
impressed on the coins to deter rogues from cheating. They 
certainly had plenty of visible monitors to remind them of their 
moral and religious obligations, for the Koman citizen, in what¬ 
ever direction he looked, might “ see the countenances of his 
country’s gods bent down upon him ” from the temples that rose 
on every hill. The love of ancestry seems to have been ardent 
with the best Romans; and no adept in the College of Arms 
could be more obliging than their sycophantic genealogists. 
About the time of Sylla, the great families used their own types 
in commemorating on coins the virtues and glories of their race, 
or honouring the deities who were their household gods, or 
public benefactors. Under the Empire, however, the coinage 
became chiefly regulated by adulation and servility, and the 
metal, moreover, became as debased as the sentiment of the legend. 

The coins which have come under the discriminating care of 
Admiral Smyth afford important aid in tracing individuals to 
their original patrician or old plebeian stock. Of the one hun¬ 
dred and sixty families whose coins are treated of in this sump¬ 
tuous volume, fourteen were pure patrician, twenty-six patrician 
with plebeian branches, seven equestrian, ninety-one plebeian, 
and twenty-two of uncertain rank and order. The whole cabinet 
bears seven hundred and sixty-eight specimens, and most of them 
appear to be in the finest possible state of preservation. In these 
enduring medals of history—coins that were perhaps actually 
handled by the very men they commemorate—that passed from 
hand to hand in the places of public assembly and the sumptuous 
palaces now mingled with “ an Empire’s dust ”— 

-Rome’s glories seem to shine : 

Her gods and god-like heroes rise to view, 

And all her faded garlands bloom anew. 



OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


I. TESTAMENTARY JURISDICTION * 

[“Morning Chronicle,” March 12, 1854.] 

The Royal Commissioners on tlie Law of Real Property, and 
the Commissioners for the more recent inquiry into the Eccle¬ 
siastical Courts, concurred in recommending the transfer to a lay 
tribunal of the jurisdiction in matters testamentary hitherto exer¬ 
cised by the Ecclesiastical Courts, and the Lord Chancellor is 
endeavouring to give effect to that important recommendation. 

The present multiplicity of jurisdictions (they are no fewer 
than three hundred and eighty-six in number) is such a serious 
and intolerable evil, and the reasons which have been urged for 
the transfer recommended by the Commissioners are so weighty, 
and so coincident with public opinion, that it is satisfactory to 
find that testamentary jurisdiction is not really in its nature a 
matter for ecclesiastical cognizance, and that a lay tribunal may 
as fitly establish as construe a testator’s will; or, in other words, 
that there is no more reason why wills should be the subject of 
ecclesiastical cognizance than other deeds relating to the transfer 
of property. No questions come before Ecclesiastical Courts with 
respect to matters testamentary that may not, with the greatest 
propriety, as Lord St. Leonard’s remarked, be decided by a 
common law or an equity judge; in many countries of Christen¬ 
dom the cognizance of wills has never been deemed to pertain to 
the Church alone; and in England it did not become the pro¬ 
vince of the clergy until some time after the Conquest. 

Prima facie , why should not a civil tribunal have cognizance 
of wills? Anciently, one tribunal decided completely and once 
for all on the validity of a will whether of real or personal estate, 
and the King’s Courts have from very early times had the power 

* Since this article appeared, the Act of 20 and 21 Victoria, “ to amend 
the law relating to Probates and Letters of Administration,” has come into 
effect. 



288 


LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 


of establishing wills in regard to devises of real estate, and of en¬ 
forcing the execution of trusts under wills relating to personal 
estate. 

Blackstone, it will be remembered, observes on the strangeness 
of ranking testamentary causes among matters of spiritual cogni¬ 
sance, “ as they are certainly of a merely temporal nature,” and 
remarks that in almost all other countries matters testamentary 
are under the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. 

Dr. Taylor, in his “ History of the Civil Law,” seems disposed 
to trace the ecclesiastical cognizance of wills to the Pontifical 
College of the Romans as its possible original. One of the powers 
of the Roman pontifices was the right to enforce the execution of 
such wills as contained bequests ad pias causas , or, to purposes of 
a religious concern. But although wills chiefly affected posses¬ 
sions and private property, they were anciently—like acts of legis¬ 
lation—made with a great degree of solemnity, comitiis centuriatis 
—at the general assembly of the whole community; were ac¬ 
knowledged before the praetor or judge; and, when opened and 
published, were copied and delivered to the parties under public 
seal, the original remaining in the public registry. This proce¬ 
dure was equivalent to our probate, and marked the care of the 
Romans for the authenticity of wills and their custody and pre¬ 
servation in a place of security. In Rome itself, by decree of 
Justinian, only the magister census could open a will. In the 
provinces, however, by a constitution of Theodosius, the rectores 
provinciarum were to perform this office; in cities and corpora¬ 
tions it belonged to the magistratus municipales; in other towns 
to the defensor plebis. So that in Britain, by the Roman law, 
the rectores provinciarum , who, says Spelman, were with us the 
earls of counties, had the cognizance or probation of wills, which 
was likewise exercised by magistrates of some corporations, and 
by lords of certain manors, instead of the defensores plebis —the 
original, doubtless, of some of the petty jurisdictions found so 
vexatious in modern times. 

Whether, when the emperors became Christian, they ceded 
this power to the bishops, upon the same principle that led the 
ancient Romans to give it to the pontifices , does not appear; in 
an early stage of human society the functions of the priest and 


TESTAMENTARY JURISDICTION. 


289 


the judges seem, as Mr. Kemble remarks, to have been insepa¬ 
rable. At all events, ecclesiastical persons appear, in early cen¬ 
times of the Christian era, to have claimed jurisdiction in wills, 
but to have been prohibited from exercising it. Lest this letter 
should become an antiquarian essay, I will refer only to the 
examples given by Spelman. 

At the fourth Council of Carthage it was ordained: 

“ Episcopus tuitionem testamentorum non suscipiat."’ 

Justinian (a.d. 530) prohibited the clergy in these terms:— 

‘ Absurdum est namque si promiscuis actibus rerum turbentur 
officia, et alii creditum aluis subtrahat; ac praecipue clericis, 
quibus opprobium est, si peritos se velint disceptationum esse 
forensium ostendere.” 

According to Lyndwode, the right of the ecclesiastical judge 
was derived by special concession from the secular power:— 

“ Sed hie posset quieri, unde provenit haec libertas quoad casum 
nostrum : videtur namque quoad primum, quod Ecclesia non 
haberet se intromittere de tali approbatione testamentorum, sed 
potius pertineret ad judices laicos. Die, qubd h;ec libertas, quoad 
approbationem hujusmodi, fundatur super consensu Kegis et 
suorum Procerum, in talibus ab antique concesso.” 

And it is laid down (Gibson’s Codex, 560, and authorities 
there cited), that probate of wills and grant of administrations 
did not originally belong to ecclesiastical cognisance, but were 
given in later times, and then, probate and grant of administra¬ 
tion only, so that the power to try whether an instrument pro¬ 
pounded was or was not a valid will was a question, not of eccle¬ 
siastical cognisance, but for trial at the common law. 

* Spelman says that the Gothic nations entrusted their priests 
with the passing of wills. So, likewise, Saxon testators published 
their wills before prelates; and in England, anterior to the Nor¬ 
man Conquest, the carl and the bishop, sitting together in the 
court of the county, administered civil, criminal, and eccle¬ 
siastical law, and heard jointly, not only the causes of wills 
wherein the bishop had the especial interest, but other causes 
also:— 

u How the earl and the bishop divided their causes and juris- 

u 


290 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


diction,” says Spelman, et appcareth not. That of wills belonged 
either wholly to the earl, as rector provincice , by the constitution 
of Theodosius, or as much to the earl as to the bishop by the 
laws of Edgar and Canute.” 

A remarkable instrument of the reign of Canute has been pre¬ 
served in Hickes’s “ Thesaurus.” A Saxon lady, in the presence 
of the thanes deputed by the county court, disinherited her son, 
and gave all her lands as well as all her chattels personal to her 
kinswoman, Leofleda, the wife of Thurkil, to enjoy after her 
death, and bade the thanes be witnesses, and declare her message 
to the shire-mote. The registry of the church, however, was 
resorted to, for, after the gift had been allowed in the county 
court, in which it appears the bishop, the alderman, the sheriff, 
and the thanes were sitting, the donee rode to the church of 
St. Ethelbert, with the leave and witness of all the people, and 
had this inserted in a book in the church. (The story is in 
Hallam’s “ Middle Ages,” ii. 73.) 

The district registries proposed by the Lord Chancellor will be 
quite in keeping with the ancient Saxon use. 

By a law of Alured, A.d. 880, the king and the bishop are 
joined in jurisdiction, “ in regis et episcopi testimonio.” 

But the Normans gave the cognisance of wills to the bishops 
and clergy exclusively. The will was to pass before the curate 
or vicar of the testator’s parish, and, in Spelman’s day, that 
ancient Norman custom still prevailed in some places in England. 
The reason may have been that laymen were in those times too 
illiterate to undertake such duties. It was for the same reason, 
probably, that the Gothic nations entrusted their priests with 
wills of property. 

Tire king is said to have had, by the old law, the right to the 
goods of a person dying intestate. That the Crown ever had 
that prerogative has been controverted; at all events, before the 
time of Magna Charta the bishops had become invested with the 
disposition of an intestate’s effects, and from their exercise of that 
power the probate of wills followed, for it was reasonable that an 
instrument which superseded the bishop’s right to distribute the 
chattels of the deceased should be proved to his satisfaction. 


TESTAMENTARY JURISDICTION. 


291 


That reason for giving probate of wills to the ordinary may, 
however, he said to have ceased when he became bound to grant 
administration to the next of kin.* 

From the time of the Anglo-Norman kings, however, causes 
testamentary seem to have been brought within the category of 
causes spiritual, which from the reign of Stephen could be heard 
only in the bishop’s court, and decided according to the canon 
law. On the continent the probate of wills for the most part 
still appertained to the office of magister census ; but as, by the 
canon law, the bishop might by spiritual monition compel the 
performance of a bequest made for pious uses, a legacy to such 
uses became a spiritual cause, and the distribution of intestates’ 
goods was confirmed to the prelates in the reign of King John. 

Accordingly we read in Glanvil— 

“ Placitum de testamentis coram judice ecclesiastico fieri debet, 
et per illorum qui testamento interfuerint testimonia, secundum 
juris ordinem, terminari.” 

And in the ancient laws of Scotland, compiled by command of 
David, the contemporary of Henry I., which in many particulars 
correspond with the English laws as delivered by Glanvil, we 
find, under the title “De Causis ad Ecclesiam Spectantibus,” &c., 
“Placitum de dotibus et de testamentis ad forum ecclesiasticum 
pertinet.” 

From this it appears that testaments were then de jure ecclesi¬ 
astico in Scotland. They were, doubtless, so in England likewise. 
And in the time of Henry III. Bracton so declares them: — 

“ Si de testamento oriatur contentio, in foro ecclesiastico debet 
placitum terminari; quia de causa testamentaria (sicut nec de 
causa matrimoniali) Curia Regis non se intromittit,” &c. 

The statute of 18 Edward III. (not Edward I., as stated in the 
reports of the recent debate), cap. 6, seems, therefore, only decla¬ 
ratory of the law recognised from the time of Stephen, in declar¬ 
ing that “causes testamentary notoriously pertain to the cogni¬ 
sance of Holy Church.” But that doctrine, whatever may be its 
prescriptive foundation, is a doctrine that was unknown to the 
law in and before the reign of Edward the Confessor, and was not 

* See Lord Hailes’ Annals of Scotland, Appendix, vol. iii. (ed.’ 1797), 
as to the Ordinary’s right. 

u 2 


292 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


recognised in many countries of Christendom. It seems to have 
been in fact an ecclesiastical usurpation. Our Saxon ancestors, 
“who,” says Mr. Kemble, “never allowed their relations as 
Christians to abrogate the older rights they had possessed as citi¬ 
zens, where the exercise of the latter was clearly compatible with 
the recognition of the former,” would have held that no fealty to 
divine authority was violated by giving to lay tribunals the cog¬ 
nisance of wills. 

Lord Lyndhurst advocated the establishment of metropolitan 
and diocesan, or district courts, throughout the kingdom for the 
exercise of testamentary jurisdiction, and the abolition of courts 
of peculiars, and other petty jurisdictions, which are equally 
unnecessary and inconvenient. Perhaps most of the difficulties 
would be removed by establishing a metropolitan court, and pre¬ 
serving in each diocese the common form, or non-contentious, 
business of probate, abolishing, however, the existing distinctions 
which render diocesan probates inoperative out of the diocese in 
which they are granted. 

A general registry of wills, and the establishment of one tri¬ 
bunal to determine all testamentary questions, are objects of the 
greatest public importance. Whether they are attainable without 
the establishment of a court of probate I do not undertake to say. 

The Commissioners on Ecclesiastical Courts, appointed in 
July, 1830, reported for the abolition of the diocesan courts. 
The Commissioners more recently appointed for inquiring into 
the state and practice of the Ecclesiastical Courts have also 
recommended the abolition of the existing jurisdiction. They 
add the recommendation that it be transferred to a new temporal 
court, to be called the “ Court of Probate.” The Ecclesiastical 
Courts Commissioners proposed to abolish the probate of wills 
altogether, substituting a simple registration, and that all conten¬ 
tious jurisdiction should be vested in the Court of Chancery. To 
the latter part of that recommendation the Lord Chancellor pro¬ 
poses by his present bill to give effect; he has wisely rejected the 
former. But whether the existing staff or machinery of the Court 
of Chancery is competent to the probate business of the country, 
even allowing wills of property under a certain amount to be 
proved in the district registries, is more than questionable. It is 


TESTAMENTARY JURISDICTION. 


293 


natural that the public mind should take alarm at a project for 
placing “in Chancery” all estates of deceased persons that become 
the subject of litigation, and it is clear that without an increase 
of judicial force in the Court of Chancery it cannot be adequate 
to dispose of all the causes that will converge to the metropolitan 
court. Lord St. Leonard’s says, it is u anomalous that one court 
should decide on the validity of wills, and another on their con¬ 
struction.” But this anomaly is not perhaps of such practical 
inconvenience as would of itself justify the transfer of all conten¬ 
tious jurisdiction with regard to the validity of wills to the Court 
of Chancery, the tribunal empowered to construe them and 
enforce the execution of testamentary trusts. There is, no doubt, 
great force in the argument that questions as to the authenticity 
or validity of a will, depending on a number of circumstances, 
are not so likely to be decided correctly by a judge who never 
has any other branch of jurisdiction to exercise his mind as by 
one who is accustomed to deal with a wider range of legal admi¬ 
nistration ; but a vice-chancellor would probably find his whole 
time demanded by the contentious jurisdiction in matters testa¬ 
mentary, involving, as they often do, most delicate questions of 
mental incapacity, undue influence, &c. If the existing staff of the 
Prerogative Court is to be transferred to the Court of Chancery, if 
district registries are to be constituted, and the whole time of a 
metropolitan judge is to be occupied by the new jurisdiction, the 
Lord Chancellor's bill would seem to constitute a court of probate 
in all but name. The Solicitor-General, I believe, proposed to 
send questions of fact to the county courts for decision, but those 
courts are ill suited to deal with the great rights involved in 
testamentary contentions. 

At all events, the proposal of the Lord Chancellor to allow 
probate in the country, for estates of limited value, is wise, and 
likely to prove beneficial. It is, of course, essential that this pri¬ 
vilege should not interfere with the safe deposit of all wills in a 
central registry. By the canons of 1603 peculiars and inferior 
courts are required to transmit the original wills they prove to 
the public registry of the bishop of the diocese, and the evil to be 
provided against is expressed to be their having no known nor 
certain registers, nor public place to keep their records in. But 


294 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


the existing inconveniences arise, not only from the minor courts 
and courts of peculiar jurisdiction ; the dispersion of wills, and 
want of safe custody, are serious evils, which can be met only by 
the change recommended by the commission. 


2. ORIGIN OF EXECUTORS OF WILLS. 

[“Notes and Queries,” vol. xii., p. 208.] 

It has been asked when Executors were first instituted ? and a 
doubt has been expressed whether they were known to the Roman 
law. Perhaps they had their beginning in ancient Greece, for 
the man who was privileged to make a will signed it before wit¬ 
nesses (who were sometimes magistrates and archons), and then 
placed it in the hands of trustees called epimeleti , who were obliged 
to see it performed. See Archbishop Potter’s “Antiquities/ 5 by 
Dunbar, ii. 339. Isseus seems to be his authority, but I have not 
the references. The eTTipek^rai were any persons who were 
charged with care, guardianship, or performance,— the original 
apparently of executors in modern time. It was, we know, the 
custom among the Romans for a man to leave his fortune to a 
friend on some executory trust. The hceres fidutiarius seems to 
have corresponded to an executor. A testator’s wishes, too, are 
often said to be addressed ad fidei commissarios. The appoint¬ 
ment of an heres , whom we may call executor in some respects, 
was essential to the validity of a will among the Romans. “ It 
was,” as Dr. Taylor remarks in his “ Elements of the Civil Law ” 
(535), “ a form so necessary, that practice at least, if not law, 
required it as the principal ingredient.” This is supported by 
the “Definition of Modestinus;” and it appears that the hceres 
testamenti was the full representative of the testator by the civil 
law, and succeeded to the whole estate, real as well as personal. 
See also Hallifax “ On the Civil Law,” 37.; and as to the form 
and mode of his institution, the sixth book of Justin., “ Cod.” 
tit. xxiii., De Testamentis, et quemadmodum Testamenta ordinetur , 
in “Corpus Juris Civilis,” 194. sqq. “An executor,” says 



ORIGIN OF EXECUTORS OF WILLS. 


295 


Ayliffe (in his “ Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani,” 264), “ so 
called ab exequendo , is in the civil and canon law sometimes called 
hares testamentarius , and often Imres simply. He had his 
beginning in the civil law by the Imperial Constitutions.” So, 
too, Cowell attributes the beginning of the executor to “ the 
Constitutions of the Emperors, who first permitted those that 
thought good by their wills to bestow anything upon godly and 
charitable uses, to appoint whom they pleased to see the same 
performed.” 

It seems to me impossible to peruse the chapters of the civil 
law quoted by these authorities without seeing that the office of 
executor was known to the Romans, although not by the modern 
name of executor, which, as Lord Hardwicke, in a case reported 
in the third volume of Atkins’s “ Reports,” said, “ is a barbarous 
term unknown to that law.” Godolphin also treats the executor 
as known to the civil law, in the “ Haeres Testamentarius;” (part 
2. c. 1. s. 1.); and so does Swinburn, in his u Treatise on Wills.” 
The custom of making wills among the Teutonic nations is ascribed 
by Selden to the Romans, and to the reception by Germanic 
nations of the Roman law. Executors are often named in Anglo- 
Saxon wills; and there is every reason for believing that the . 
custom of making devises of lands as well as chattels was intro¬ 
duced into England from Rome by Augustine. Wills were not 
considered in the same ceremonious point of view as the Roman 
Testamenti. They were partly a settlement or grant, and a testa¬ 
ment, and corroborated by being witnessed by prelates, who are 
made to some extent executors, a portion of the testator’s property 
being usually bequeathed to pious purposes, in which case even 
the Roman law allowed the intervention of clergy. (Kemble’s 
Introd. to “Cod. Dipl. aEvi Saxon.,” p. cviii.) The Anglo- 
Saxon prelates seem to have answered to the functionaries of the 
Pontifical College in this respect, who had the care and super¬ 
intendence of wills and executory trusts. Mr. Kemble doubts 
whether probate was required among the Anglo-Saxons. There 
are Saxon wills in which a legatus is not designated or appointed 
for the execution of the testator’s wishes. In some cases, as 
in the will of Elfhelm, in Lye’s “ Saxon Dictionary,” vol. ii., 
Appendix, there is a request to the superior lord, which runs in 


296 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


that instance—“ Jam oro te, dilecte domine, ut meum testa- 
mentum stare possit, et tu ne sinas ut ipsum quis pervertat.” 
The earliest will printed in Mr. Kemble’s valuable collection of 
Anglo-Saxon documents is of the ninth century. The legatum 
testamentum is rendered in the Anglo-Saxon gepepan gepetnyppe 
(gerefan gesetnysse)—words which seem aptly to designate a 
representative functionary. Glanville (writing, I need hardly say, 
in the reign of Henry II.) says the executors of a testament should 
be such persons as the testator has chosen for that purpose; but if 
he doth not nominate any person, the nearest of kin and relations 
may take upon them the charge (Lib. vii. ch. 6). This latter is 
the executor ab Episcopo constitutus mentioned by the Canonists 
and old writers on wills; the former is the executor a testators 
constitutus , or executor testamentarius , who is usually meant by 
the term executor. The older authorities of ecclesiastical law 
treat the appointment of an executor as essential to a testament: 
but this strictness, as is remarked by the learned author of 
“ Williams on Executors,” has long ceased to exist. I have not 
any reference to the first known appearance of the term executor 
in our records. In the .Rolls of Parliament, mention is made of the 
executors of the will of Bishop John de Kyrkeby in a.d. 1290. 
Nicolas, in his “Ancient Wills,” does not give an older example, 
but there is no doubt the term has been known to our law from 
a much earlier period. 


3. REVISION OF THE STATUTES. 

[“Morning Post,” 26 March, 1853.] 

At this time, when the announcement of the Lord Chancellor’s 
intention to undertake the revision and consolidation of the 
statute law has attracted serious attention in Parliament, as well 
as amongst lawyers, it may not be uninteresting to turn to a 
suggestion made, nearly a century ago, by a juridical writer of 
eminence, with a view to the effectual prosecution of this great 
object. Its necessity had then begun to be felt. I refer to the 
proposal of the Hon. Daines Barrington, published in his “ Obser- 



I 


i 


REVISION OF THE STATUTES. 297 

rations on tlie Statutes,” in 1766. After mentioning the appoint¬ 
ment of a committee of the House of Commons for the purpose of 
revising and consolidating the statute law, which had taken place 
fifteen or sixteen years before, and had not resulted in any 
material progress, and remarking on the unfitness of a body so 
constituted for a work requiring so much time and deliberation, 
he suggests— 

“ That two or more barristers should be appointed who, from 
year to year, might make a report to the Privy Council, as like¬ 
wise to the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and the 
twelve Judges, of a certain number of statutes which should either 
be repealed, or reduced into one consistent act; and send a draft 
of such proposed consistent act before the last day of every Trinity 
term. * * * If the alterations should be approved of, they 

might pass into laws in the subsequent session of Parliament. 
The good consequences (he continues) of such a reformation of 
the law need not be dwelt upon, as the statute-book would be 
reduced to half its present size, and the subject better know the 
law he is to be governed by/’ 

It is strange that a work so salutary, and so necessary as a 
reformation of the public statutes, with a view to the repeal of 
obsolete laws, and the consolidation in one consistent code of the 
acts and parts of acts relating to one and the same subject, actu¬ 
ally in force, should at this day still remain to be accomplished, 
although, probably, the necessity for it has been continually felt 
during more than a century; a period characterised too, at all 
events during the last thirty years, by law reforms of the most 
comprehensive nature, and by extensive changes in the law. 

The “Jurist” recently, in pointing out the number of acts 
which are scattered about on the same subject, enumerated no 
less than twenty-six statutes relating to the law of evidence, 
thirty-one relating to that of executors, forty-two on landlord 
and tenant, and thirteen on bills of exchange ! These, amounting 
to 112 statutes, could surely be consolidated into four on those 
four subjects. As a consolidation of scattered laws, the Bankrupt 
Act of 1849 may be mentioned as a step in the right direction; 
and we have much to hope from Lord St. Leonard’s proposed 
consolidation of the criminal law. 


298 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


In liis recent publication, under the title of “ Confusion worse 
Confounded, or the Statutes in 1852,” Mr. Willmore has vigor¬ 
ously assailed the grim and ponderous monster called “ Statutes at 
Large ”—a giant consisting of 20,000 members, covering a space 
of 40,000 pages weighing more than two hundred weight, and 
in many parts composed of dead and forgotten law. Mr. Willmore 
has not failed to point out their contradictions, absurdities, and 
obscurities, or that there are in existence single statutes relating 
to heterogeneous subjects ( Ex . gr ., the 22nd George II., c. 46, 
which, according to its title, relates, inter alia , to the distemper 
among horned cattle, as well as to the regulation of attorneys and 
the affirmation of Quakers), and heterogeneous statutes relating 
to a single subject, besides statutes containing provisions of 
a general importance, of the subject-matter of which no intima¬ 
tion is given by the title. Many examples might be adduced of 
prohibitory Acts of Parliament unrepealed, which are repugnant 
to the age, and really dangerous and detrimental, inasmuch as 
private malice might drag them from their desuetude to vex indi¬ 
viduals, and bring disgrace upon the law. 

In recent law-making we have but too many instances of want 
of consistency and of the evils of'hasty legislation, leading, truly, 
to “ confusion worse confounded,” and to such ludicrous anomalies 
as those which Lord Lyndhurst pointed out on the recent debate. 

Having adverted to Mr. Barrington’s proposal, I may men¬ 
tion the plan of Mr. Willmore, which is, simply that a per¬ 
manent board of three commissioners be constituted and empow¬ 
ered to report—1st. With regard to future legislation, on every 
bill relating to public matters, within a month from the first 
reading, having regard, in their report, to existing legislation on 
the subject of it, the bill to be reviewed by them after it shall 
have passed through committee; and 2dly, With regard to the 
past, to revise the statute-book, and prepare bills for the repeal 
and consolidation of all the existing statute-law, neither altering 
nor adding anything; and he proposes that 10,000Z. a-year should 
be set apart for this purpose—a small sum, surely, for Great 
Britain to weigh against benefits of such stupendous importance 
as the improvement of her laws. 

In the employment of a permanent board to report on the 


REVISION OF THE STATUTES. 


299 


consolidation and repeal of statutes, this plan resembles that of 
Mr. Barrington; but, as far as relates to existing statutes, I should 
think it better that the reports of the Commission be made to the 
judicial functionaries indicated by the latter writer than to 
Parliament. As the “ Jurist ” has remarked, the constitution of 
such a board seems preferable to the employment of an over¬ 
worked barrister or two, under an overworked Lord Chancellor 
who goes out with the Ministry. 

Whatever may be the constitution of the tribunal to which the 
public statutes are to be called, I hope Her Majesty’s energetic 
Chancellor will concur in the following observations of Mr. Bar¬ 
rington :— 

“ It is not,” he remarks, “ proposed by the term reformation of 
the law that there should be a new arrangement and Institute of 

Q 

the whole body of the law, as in the time of Justinian, or a Code 
Frederique , which is not practicable in this country, where every 
alteration must have the sanction of Parliament. Nor, was it 
practicable, would the proposer presume to alter what is founded 
in the deepest wisdom.” If I understand aright, this was the 
view taken in the recent debate by no less an authority than 
Lord St. Leonard’s. 

It may deserve consideration whether, in a work of such mag¬ 
nitude, it might not be expedient to select one class of subjects 
for consideration at first. Thus, for example, the statutes relating 
to public government and constitutional law greatly need revi¬ 
sion, with a view to the consolidation of those portions that 
remain in actual force. So, likewise, of the statutes relating to 
the rights of property. As a deliberate and careful revision is 
so essential, we should perhaps be well content if the important 
work of revising and making consistent only one great class of 
public laws were accomplished in the time in which Trebonianus 
and his assistants compiled the Pandects, viz., three years—a 
collection which Justinian allowed them ten years to compile. 
It would be well if we could see the accomplishment of the whole 
work in even a decade of years, or a longer period. 

I shall conclude this long letter with a remark which seems 
particularly applicable to the present time:— 

“ The reformation of the law (says Mr. Dailies Barrington) 




300 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


hath generally been an object, and often the chief glory, of every 
good and great reign. It is not, therefore, to be doubted but 
that under the present auspicious one, which hath begun by an 
act recommended from the throne itself to perpetuate to this 
nation the most pure and upright administration of justice, this 
great object will be, sooner or later, attended to.” 


4. TITLE OF DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 

[“Notes and Queries,” vol. ii. p. 481.] 

It is quite startling to be told that the title of‘‘Defender of 
the Faith” was used by the royal predecessors of Henry VIII. 

Selden (“Titles of Honour,” ed. 1631, p. 54.) says:—“The 
beginning and ground of that attribute of e Defender of the 
Faith,’ which hath been perpetually in the later ages added to 
the style of the Kings of England (not only in the first person, 
but frequently also in the second and in the third, as common 
use shows in the formality of instruments of conveyance, leases, 
and such like,) is most certainly known. It began in Henry VIII. 
For he, in those awaking times, upon the quarrel of the Roman¬ 
ists and Lutherans, wrote a volume against Luther,” &c. 

Selden then states the well-known occasion upon which this 
title was conferred, and sets out the Bull of Leo X. (then extant 
in the collection of Sir Robert Cotton, and now in the British 
Museum), whereby the Pope, “holding it just to distinguish 
those who have undertaken such pious labours for defending the 
faith of Christ, with every honour and commendation,” decrees 
that to the title of King the subjects of the royal controversialist 
shall add the title “ Fidei Defensori.” The pontiff adds, that a 
more worthy title could not be found. 

Colonel Anstruther (“ Notes and Queries,” vol. ii. p. 442) calls 
attention to the statement made by Mr. Christopher Wren, 
Secretary of the Order of the Garter (a.d. 1736), in his letter to 
Francis Peck, on the authority of the Register of the Order in 
his possession; (which letter is quoted by Burke, “ Dorm, and 
Ext. Baronage,” iv. 408), that “ King Henry VII. had the title of 



TITLE OF DEFENDER OF THE FAITII. 


301 


Defender of the Faith.” It is not found in any acts or instru¬ 
ments of his reign that I am acquainted with, nor in the 
proclamation on his interment, nor in any of the epitaphs en¬ 
graved on his magnificent tomb, for which, see Sandford’s History. 
Nor is it probable that Pope Leo X., in those days of diplomatic 
intercourse with England, would have bestowed on Henry VIII., 
as a special and personal distinction and reward, a title that had 
been used by his royal predecessors. It is true that in Matthew 
Paris the title of Defender is given to the King, in 1245; and 
Knyghton, anno 1387, records a commission in which Richard II. 
assumed the title of Defender of the Catholic Faith. Except in these 
cases, 1 am not aware that the title is attributed to the sovereign 
in any of the English records anterior to 1521; but that many 
English kings gloried in professing their zeal to defend the 
Church and religion, appears from many examples. Thus, in 15 
Edw. III. the Commons say their gift of a ninth to the King was 
for his defence of the kingdom and the Holy Church of England. 
(Rot. Pari, in anno). Henry IV., in the second year of his 
reign, promises to maintain and defend the Christian religion 
(Rot. Pari. iii. 466); and on his renewed promise, in the fourth 
year of his reign, to defend the Christian faith, the Commons 
piously grant a subsidy {Ibid. 493); and Henry VI., in the 
twentieth year of his reign, acts as “ keeper of the Christian 
faith.” (Rot. Park, v. 61.) 

In the admonition used in the investiture of a knight with the 
insignia of the Garter, he is told to take the crimson robe, and 
being therewith defended, to be bold to fight and shed his blood 
for Christ’s faith, the liberties of the Church, and the defence of 
the oppressed. In this sense the sovereign and every knight 
became a sworn defender of the faith. When the clergy, in 1530, 
gave the King the title of Head of the Church, they intended no 
more than their forefathers did when they called the King the 
“ Defender,” “ Patron,” “ Governor,” “ Tutor” of the Church. 

The Bull of Leo X., which confers the title on Henry VIII. 
personally, does not make it inheritable by his successors, so that 
none but that King himself could claim the honour. The Bull 
granted two years afterwards by Clement VII. merely confirms 
the grant of Pope Leo to the King himself. It was given, as we 


302 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


know, for his assertion of doctrines of the Church of Rome; yet 
he retained it after his separation from the Roman Catholic com¬ 
munion, and after it had been formally revoked and withdrawn 
by Pope Paul III. in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., 
upon the King’s apostacy in turning suppressor of religious houses. 
In 1543, the Reformation legislature and the anti-papal King, 
without condescending to notice any Papal Bulls, assumed to 
treat the title the Pope had given and taken away, as a subject of 
Parliamentary gift, and annexed it for ever to the English crown by 
statute 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3, from which I make the following extract, 
as its language bears upon the question: “Whereas our most dread, &c. 
lord the King hath heretofore been, and is justly, lawfully, and noto¬ 
riously knowen, named, published, and declared to be King of Eng¬ 
land, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church 
of England, and also of Ireland, in earth Supreme Head; and hath 
justly and lawfully used the title and name thereof as to his Grace 
appertaineth. Be it enacted, &c., that all and singular his Grace’s 
subjects, &c. shall from henceforth accept and take the same his 
Majesty’s style .... viz., in the English tongue by these words, 
Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God King of England, France, 
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of Eng¬ 
land, and also of Ireland, in earth the Supreme Head; and that 
the said style, &c. shall be, &c. united and annexed for ever to 
the imperial crown of his highness’s realms of England.” 

By the supposed authority of this statute, and notwithstanding 
the revocation of the title by Pope Paul III., and its omission in 
the Bull addressed by Pope Julius III. to Philip and Mary, that 
princess, before and after her marriage, used this style, and the 
statute having been re-established by 1 Eliz. c. 1., the example 
has been followed by her royal Protestant successors, who wished 
thereby to declare themselves Defenders of the anti-papal Church. 
The learned Bishop Gibson, in his “Codex” (i. 33., note), treats 
this title as having commenced in Henry VIII. So do Blount, 
Cowel, and such like authorities. 

Since writing the above, I have found (in the nineteenth 
volume of “ Archaeologia,” pp. 1—10) an essay by Mr. Alex¬ 
ander Luders on this very subject, in which that able writer, 
who was well accustomed to examine historical records, refers to 


TITLE OF DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 


303 


many examples in which the title “ Most Christian King” was 

attributed to, or used by, English sovereigns, as well as the kings 

of France; and to the fact, that this style was used by Henry VII. 

as appears from his contract with the Abbat of Westminster, 

(Harl. MS. 1498.) Selden tells us that the emperors had from 

early times been styled “ Defensores Ecclesiae;” and, from the 

instances cited by Mr. Luders, it appears that the title of u Most 

Christian” was appropriated to kings of France from a very 

ancient period; that Pepin received it (a.d. 755) from the Pope, 

and Charles the Bald (a.d. 859) from a Council: and Charles VI. 

refers to ancient usage for this title, and makes use of these words: 

% 

“ -nostrorum progenitorum imitatione—evangelicse veritatis— 

defensores —nostra regia dignitas divino Christianas religionis 
titulo gloriosius insignitur- 

Mr. Luders refers to the use of the words “ Nos zelo fidei 
catholicce , cujus sumus et erimus Deo dante Defensores , salubriter 
commoti,” in the charter of Richard II. to the Chancellor of 
Oxford, in the nineteenth year of his reign, as the earliest instances 
he had met with of the introduction of such phrases into acts of the 
kings of England. This zeal was for the condemnation of WyclifPs 
“ Trialogus.” In the reign of Henry IV. the writ “ De Hasretico 
comburendo 3) had the words “ Zdator justitiae et fidei catholicas 
cultor;” and the title of “ Tres Chretien ” occurs in several instru¬ 
ments of Henry VI. and Edward IV. It appears very probable 
that this usage was the foundation of the statement made by 
Chamberlayne and by Mr. Christopher Wren: but that the title 
of Defender of the Faith was used as part of the royal style before 
1521, is, I believe, quite untrue. 




304 


5. USE OF NORMAN-FRENCH IN PARLIAMENTARY 

FORMS. 

[“John Bull” newspaper, November, 1851.] 

A correspondent of tlie “ Morning Chronicle,” whose nom de 
'plume is “ Clio/’ has recently protested against our allowing the 
language of William the Conqueror to linger in the constitutional 
forms of the British Parliament. He suggests that it is a viola¬ 
tion of our feelings of nationality to use what he calls the dialect 
of conquerors in making the English laws, and asks why should 
not the victory of the English tongue over the usurping Norman- 
French he complete? Now I presume that no one can seriously 
desire that our composite and copious language should be reduced 
to what it was before the coming of the Normans, or contemplate 
the possibility of such a “ victory of the English tongue;” and I 
cannot see how our feelings of nationality are violated by using 
the harmless phrases of Norman-French which have so long 
lingered by the fountain of legislation. At the risk of being 
accounted a “ musty legal antiquary, blindly attached to old 
forms/’ I must ask your permission to say a few words on their 
behalf, not because I have tb confess any attachment to those 
particular phrases, or think their use a matter of any importance 
in itself, but because the correspondent of the “ Morning Chron¬ 
icle” appears to me to be wrong in representing the use of 
Norman-French as a badge of subjection. The use of Norman- 
French in England during some centuries, is not to be regarded 
as a mark of subjection to the dictates of a conqueror. A taste 
for Norman fashions and language had, indeed, arisen among the 
higher classes in England before the Conquest; and the Norman 
tongue came into use, not because it was imposed on the Saxons, 
but because it was the language of the churchmen, lawyers, and 
courtiers of the day. The great Norman soldier and lawgiver 
grafted the Norman brancli upon the Saxon stock, and is marked 
as a founder rather than a destroyer in the records of our polity, 
our language, and our nation. He proscribed neither the Saxon 
language nor the Saxon laws; but the gradual influence of his 
race moulded the Anglo-Saxon dialect into our English language. 


USE OF NORMAN FRENCH IN PARLIAMENTARY FORMS. 305 

More than a century elapsed since the death of King William 
before his language became impressed on that of England; and 
the Norman-French did not supersede the Latin as the common 
language of public ordinances and acts of state on record until 
the reign of Edward I. Yet the French language and manners 
probably predominated in the memorable field of Runymede, and 
the former was made the vehicle of declaring our English rights 
and liberties in the great Charter of King John. It was not until 
the line of Anjou reigned that the French tongue had come 
entirely to supplant the Latin in our statute-rolls. From that 
time it was almost invariably their language, down to the 5th 
Ric. II., from which period English occasionally appears; but 
the French was not superseded until the reign of Richard III. 
It was not until the reign of Henry VII. that statutes were com¬ 
monly made in English. 

The constitutional forms of Parliament—by which I mean the 
forms used in making the statutes—seem to have come in with 
the House of Plantagenet, and may, therefore, be regarded as 
relics of the royal race of Anjou, as fragments that have come 
down to us on the stream of English laws, as things associated 
with periods great and glorious in our history, and on those 
accounts venerable in the eyes of Englishmen. A lawyer natur¬ 
ally loves the stability of old forms of procedure, and cannot see 
why you might not as well banish from our jurisprudence the words 
“ Assize,” “Justice,” and a hundred other terms of the language 
in which Britton, in the reign of Edward I., wrote his celebrated 
treatise of our laws, as the old phrases which are still used in 
some Parliamentary forms. I suppose it is from their antiquity 
that a sort of talismanic value seems to be attributed to them, 
and, though this mysterious virtue might not be lost if they were 
to be translated, I would say, “ Let us stand upon the ancient 
ways,” until good reason is shown for forsaking them. I find it 
stated, curiously enough, in Mr. May’s excellent treatise on the 
“ Law and Usage of Parliament,” that during the usurpation 
called the “ Commonwealth ” the Lord Protector gave his assent 
to Bills in English (a reason, as I dare say many of your readers 
will agree, why Queen Victoria should not do so), and that on 
the Restoration the old form of words was reverted to. It further 


x 


306 


OCCASIONAL LETTERS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 


appears that only one attempt has since been made to abolish it, 
viz., in 1706, when the Lords passed a Bill “ for abolishing the 
use of the French tongue in all proceedings in Parliament and 
Courts of Justice,” which Bill dropped in the House of Commons; 
“ and although,” says Mr. May, “ an Act passed in 1731 for con¬ 
ducting all proceedings in Courts of Justice in English, no alter¬ 
ation was made in the old forms used in Parliament.” The use 
of ancient forms was as distasteful to the Revolution mob in France 
as it had been to Cromwell, and they enacted that certain old 
phrases should give place to new forms. But custom ere long 
re-asserted its ancient sway; and I would urge that it be not in¬ 
terfered with in the case of the harmless relics of antiquity which 
have so long lingered on our statute-rolls. Finally, the corre¬ 
spondent of the “ Chronicle ” uses against them the cui bono 
argument; but the use which it has become the fashion to make 
of that argument does not by any means recommend it; and I 
cannot forbear from protesting on every opportunity against an 
argument which the utilitarian school is fond of applying to 
ancient things, and has unfortunately applied to matters of 
greater value than the use of the phrases in question. 


6. VALIDITY OF OATHS. 

[“Durham County Advertiser,” February, 1857.] 

A few weeks since, a case came before a County Court, in 
which it was ruled that the evidence could not be received of a 
person tendered for examination who said he believed in the 
existence of a Supreme Being, but would not give a direct 
answer to the questions whether he believed in God, or in a 
future state of rewards and punishments, or in the existence of 
heaven and hell. He was the plaintiff in the case, and was 
called to prove his demand, which was for papers sold for some 
Chartist reading-room. 

I often hear the rejection of his evidence discussed and disap¬ 
proved of, and I believe there were articles in various news- 



VALIDITY OF OATHS. 307 

papers in which it was insisted that the man should have been 
sworn and allowed to give his evidence. 

Now, it is settled law that an atheist is not competent to give 
evidence; that you cannot admit the testimony of a person who 
does not believe in the existence of a Deity or in the punishment 
by that Deity of the crime of perjury. The old jurists and 
civilians define a judicial oath to be a solemn invocation of the 
vengeance of God upon the witness if he do not declare the truth 
as far as he knows it—a definition which may be traced to the 
Pandects of the Roman law. In Rex v. Taylor, Peake’s Cases, 
N. P. 11, Mr. Justice Buller held that the proper question to be 
asked of the witness is whether he believes in God, in the obli¬ 
gation of an oath, and in a future state of rewards and punish¬ 
ments; and Starkie, in his “ Law of Evidence,” (title “ Excluding 
Tests,”) lays it down that all may be sworn who believe in the 
existence of God, in a future state of rewards and punishments, 
and that Divine punishment will be the consequence of perjury. 
But, as to the belief in a future state, it appears from the judg¬ 
ment of Chief Justice Willes, in the celebrated case of Omichund 
v . Barker, Willes’ Rep. 550, that “a witness ought to be admitted 
if he believes in the existence of a God who will reward or 
punish him in this world, although he may not believe in a 
future state.” And Lord Chancellor Liardwicke says that the 
witness’s appeal to the Supreme Being, as thinking Him the 
rewarder of truth and the avenger of falsehood, is all that is 
necessary to an oath. 

It therefore seems very questionable whether the testimony of 
the proposed witness in the County Court case was rightly 
rejected, if he was held incapable on the ground of his not 
believing in a future state of rewards and punishments, or in 
heaven and hell. 

But—if our Courts have not ceased to be necessarily Christian 
under modern “ Defenders of the Faith”—the difficulty seems to 
be how to administer or receive any oath in which Almight}^ 
God is not invoked. 

According to St. Augustine, in his celebrated answer on the 
question of the lawfulness of heathen oaths, no law of God forbade 
the reception in a lawful cause of the oath of a man who swears 




308 OCCASIONAL LETTEKS ON LEGAL TOPICS. 

by false gods, if be is bound by tlie faith that he has pledged. 
And so, great European jurists have thought that the invocation 
of God as a witness or an avenger, is to be accommodated to the 
religious persuasion with regard to Deity which the swearer 
entertains. Puffendorf says, “ It is vain and unmeaning to call 
upon a man to swear by a god whom he does not believe in. 
But he who swears by false gods, if he accounts them true, stands 
bound, for, whatever his notions were, he has some sense of an 
avenging deity before his eyes.” I apprehend that our law 
knows no more of the god of the Mahometans than of the false 
gods of the heathen; yet it appears from what Lord Chief 
Justice Hale says in his “ Pleas for the Crown, 5 ’ 279, that a Turk 
may be a witness and may be sworn in any form he may profess 
to be binding on his conscience, provided we find that he believes 
in an avenging deity; and the evidence even of Chinese and 
other idolaters has constantly been received, at least in recent 
times. I need hardly observe that the form of swearing upon 
the New Testament, although the style authorised in all the 
Courts, is by no means essential to the oath, for Jews as well as 
others are allowed to be sworn according to the form they profess 
most binding. 

But it will be found that in every form of oath the witness 
recognises the existence of God, and appeals to the Deity as the 
avenger of falsehood, and that no witness has been held compe¬ 
tent who does not profess such religious principles as bind him in 
his conscience to speak the truth. It is difficult to gather from 
the scanty report of the case which has occasioned these remarks, 
whether the witness’s belief was anything but a negation; and I 
only hope it will be understood, whatever the “liberal” news¬ 
papers may say, that, if he confessed himself an atheist, his testi¬ 
mony was rightly rejected. If, however, he professed his belief 
in a Supreme Being who would punish falsehood, it seems that 
he should have been admitted, although he would not say 
whether that being is our God, and would not acknowledge a 
belief in a future state. 

THE END. 


Westminster : Printed by J. B. Nichols and Sons, 25, Parliament Street. 














/' , . 0 '<?/- s - , ^ ♦oso" <0 

o ♦ /♦ r >*‘ V V N , J* > A 0 * Yt, °/ 

^ \ r ' n ^ r ‘ °^' " ^ , V^ 4 ^ *'rt\%£/U'' '<n A\‘ 


h o <f‘ 
i / ^ V 





V> ^ 

* ,Y> < ' - Cc? 

°o o° ^ .* . 

^ > bo x 


vV <p_ 



C‘ * c ' t '~ % a- c*-. / ■ O 

%. *" '* V \ v ,-••» % ' - 0 0 > 



* _V 

<> V 


' •_> 




^ c 


0 N 0‘ 


■—■ \J 

* 4 ~f 

,V 'K 


? A ^ 


X 0o^ 

'- y t c *?m** j 

V> V s s • • , % * » » « ' «/ t . ., % * • . ’■ X* 



'iP \ V 

o> •%- « %^$W ’ ,^ v ^J—, 
* „v <? \ "£%"* * •*+ \ 

N < 7 O ♦ K * A w ,. 

. U V ^ * •*• ,]P * x-^ * 





%\V 

vV </> 


. & -<u 


**fa\ \ A - 




z 


« A** 

'% >*; :♦.. , V'“ s 

. ^ v " p ' -- ->-t-^; ^ > y { ', u-h \ y oo^ - 

'7*'/ ./> x ^ o 

V «£* 



* o N 0 ’ 4 O 

s S ’ ' U > .0 V 

•S 


• * V 
" <* • 

^ ,0 N 

_ f *> V> % o W®^ * ,^ V <$» ' 

'• -«> V ^ ^ v ,t' '-,\K ^ <V / . ; j> * 

>£' * *' ' 0 ’' X > A ^ 'X" 







c 0 


y '^y«o ^ < 1 

x’t '•?,. * 3 N 0 ’ A 0 ' ° 




\ 0 °<. 



. <•>’'■%. V - ' -' 

•N ^ « 

. 0 V ' v flV //•/%. # 

c- ^ <&/rfch + s* * 


'/V 5N0 x o^ 

- AT 7 
* ■>* ^ 



> <7>, 





v\ y - 

* 'V ,y ^> • 

5 ** , N ^ " 
X ' 0Nt ^/ / O. 


0 v K 


*, A' 


a 


\° ^ - 

^ <t ^ ^ + 

a - ->c * '*>: f,v--’/^..:v‘ 

f .^;* *■ ^ v 

•■ ■'"^’ v :n’’ * 4 ^ %. 0 ■'-" .§ \ ° 

; ^ -i Ki, , '':. y.W v flV - ,4 • N * -V < r ' v> 

-i A A, . % ^.V* -X 1 . V- * 


') « .>W 



^ \\ 

« **? u 

~ c. 



V- A^’ C 0<C * O^’t'"** ^ °' k ^ 

f ^ 0° * at'/rfpp? ^ ^ 

'- ^ V °^^,* # 'o0 < ' '**- >* ‘ ^1 

.* y£w* ■v'-' ;: 'i 4°^. ► 

?" *’*«'.\ * ''••'‘>* , " , '/v-/\ 

\‘%^’ - ; l is | ; > 

a >. / = x\i .^v 

>. v.*' v<~» «y v /^/ r *> 



” s > ' 

■ y 

V* 

»^y y 

^4 ' € 

,«V' 

8 ♦ 

<* y 0 
<? 

* &/r 

/s. >ep [/,// 

K X*' ^ ' 

-f 

* 

\ ^ 






^ 0 


v > 0, v-c> 

A' 0 N o‘ 'l* 1 “ * 'n 

S> c 0 <• A O. / .f> v 

4 p ^ C- 

<W 

o 

K V^* ■»&•',;%,# •; 

y ’ V ‘*''*♦/*«> '“''.0^' *'"•» °* v ^ ('"‘t V'"'''/. 1 ". V 

\ <Tl , ° C» A ^/r??^^ ^ * v* ♦ r-SSNr ^ C. v X /T?^ -» 

' Q _v " . +, c* > .. .. y /€% ^ •-= 




\ X < * * , ,> >. * a n 0 • ^ . . . 

v . s ^ ,0 ^' 0 / 'o 

' ✓ xiv ^ * 'P* 

' *<&* 
° *'7Ws # ^ : -^ n ? ‘ ' - 









; o x 
;* ^ 

^ + y - >W . <1 

V . s » * r 1 N | 



V\' s ^ > 


O 

/ n k^s j <1 

v' V . s»” f*'% * 3 K 0 ,,V ' „,. „, -* c 

c,^ ^ o w/ww * aV ^ , 

V. ^ ki V,Jie.\K * f\v f/» /•'o’' w v/ «» \\J* A VV' Tit 

■k ft*' S ■*. A & s /-W V 4 ^ ^ -4 , 

I<.<,' s <0 <y y 0 , V ^ A O, -V, s s , 0 X ^ y 0 . * .\ y-, 

0 V V * ^ ^ (° N S l b /.m, a\ 1 0 N c 

* k. x 0 C v v v ^ 1 'fi .A tt -® ■ 0 

, •>b 0 'c r*. <y ;J$mCk'* ~ = - •». .>• 




_ „ % 

Oo. r ^ 






■i 'P v 

*> 0k\ 

-t ■A > /TXrw 

: °x. : % 

A 1 .-^//,'i 







8 I * 


^ '’'ono- 1 ,0' "o. * 



» I 


<V* ^*0/ r 0 , 


V s * . 

fV V v\ 

. ^ ^ * / W - %- A 

^ * 






*>. * 


r> y * I ) 

A V c*. , * * It « * 

V K s' % 't * o 

.«£ ^ O '■',. .'’ " JkV if*. 


> %,r s^y ^ v / *rfc vr v ^ v. ■ * a s 

a a oNt *'.*'' A 0 .,, C '».*■* ,A ■G* 

**- >* - a ^ - £l.^* W j? A AAa ~ « -*i 


^r. 




</>. 


x°°<, ,*0* 



O 0 




,0 o 


•A 


* '^60j bW ± ' 

C*^ V ^ N T A, > O a * * 0 /■ 


*fe 0 X 


0 H A 




* .r-C'fX f o A , v 



vV‘ A* 
\V '/*, 



X* * x <^ r '✓ 

A ^ * 

» S ^ /L 

* 7 * 

'c ^ ' * 

cf \v 




, -*-■:( i LW * , V ' 



A 

" .>"« % '""' S' ».»«,%* ,: *'' A <•- '-‘\ i < V 

U* * C> yr^?. -f ^ A 

.js, A' * '.•-\S\|)'^k J ‘ . * M •/•/■; ^ x. A **■ «: 

r-v.^X: "bo ' 1 ./aa: ^v 1 




, ' ' A ^ y A ’ ' ' A r0 C‘ ^ 

■'*•, "‘c '■’ v'V' '♦% ,B * ‘ 




* r-CANx ^ <J< 

^ ^ ^ tt. 



- > 

J>' \> s' 

e 0 , ♦ 1 8 <■ 




* a; ! wr^® ■* ^ > 

1 ■'■’"% 1 xOo 


„ °v- *<■'”’ / ,.. v y » 

°/ ^> V X s 

v> ^ ■ ■- ■ * 




•v 


y 0 , K -* 

A f 0 N c ; * * s 

A> a- ▼» o. 

-’X V* 


w 



«A -A. 



V 


A 




I « 



y 0 * X * A 


A 

N° ^ * ' 



\> K. S Sk J/ C)' ?. ' /■ V „ S X '^ CL X *0/- / 0 

<#- ^ ■"-. r x'fr r (C 9* ^ . s :ifi'-Av, >■ ^ ^ 



A 


.v ** 
° ^ ^ 


”- *' 


A' " c -iT44 ;.'i • -V*. •%, 5 A-' u ,p - o 

y \X V ' ", 4 * <X A VV'V ^ <1 

A // < M s' A) <* y o * x ^ A ' '/A^\s v A Y 


C, A 

.,V 


«'’ * * 

^ % V 

v 

x° <5^ v ^ 





xX V 

o o x 




■’Ss, 



/•< 


x 00 ^ 













